</ 

University  of  Calif ornia  •  Berkeley 


AY/- 


Photographed  by  Arnold  Genthe 


FRANK   NORRIS 


The  Complete  Works  of 

FRANK  NORRIS 


IN  FOUR  CROWN  OCTAVO  VOLUMES, 
WITH  BACK  STAMP.  CONTAINING  A 
PORTRAIT  OF  THE  AUTHOR,  AND 
ILLUSTRATIONS  BY  FREDERIC  REMING- 
TON, FRANK  X.  LEYENDECKER,  LUCIUS 
HITCHCOCK,  AND  CHARLES  E.  HOOPER 


P.  F.  COLLIER   6?   SON 

Nos.  416-424  West  Thirteenth  Street,  New  York 


The  Complete  Works  of 

FRANK  NORRIS 


VOL.  I 
THE    OCTOPUS 

"THE    EPIC    OF    THE    WHEAT 


VOL.    II 

THE    PIT 

"THE    EPIC    OF    THE    WHEAT" 

A    DEAL    IN    WHEAT 

AND    OTHER    STORIES     OF  THE    NEW     AND 
OLD    WEST 


VOL.    Ill 

McTEAGUE 
A    MAN'S    WOMAN 

VOL.  IV 
BLIX- 

MORAN    OF  THE    LADY  LETTY 
ESSAYS    ON    AUTHORSHIP 


FRANK   NORRIS 


X" 

RANK  NORRIS,  the  author  of  six  notable  novels,  a 
number  of  clever  short  stories,  and  a  volume  of  re- 
markably original  and  informing  essays  on  the  prac- 
tical aspects  of  the  literary  career,  died  in  1902  at 
the  early  age  of  thirty-two,  with  the  reputation  already 
achieved  of  being  the  most  promising  of  all  our  younger 
writers.  Had  he  lived  long  enough  to  have  written  another 
book,  already  planned,  which  under  the  title  of  "The  Wolf"  was 
to  form  the  third  of  a  trilogy  called  "The  Epic  of  the  Wheat"  —  the 
first  two  volumes  of  which,  "The  Octopus"  and  "The  Pit," 
had  already  created  a  profound  literary  sensation  —  Norris,  in  the 
estimation  of  many  of  our  leading  critics,  would  have  been  justly 
entitled  to  the  seat  among  his  fellow  authors  that  has  been  so 
long  reserved  for  the  "Great  American  Novelist."  Born  in 
Chicago,  and  reared  in  California,  yet  with  a  cosmopolitan  edu- 
cation —  in  art  at  Paris;  in  letters  at  the  University  of  California 
and  Harvard;  in  journalism  at  San  Francisco;  and  in  practical 
authorship  as  the  literary  adviser  of  a  New  York  publishing 
house  —  he  was  peculiarly  fitted  to  present  to  the  world  effec- 
tively something  of  the  deeper  meaning  of  Americanism,  that 
mighty  spirit  which  is  no  less  a  wonder  to  ourselves  than  to 
other  nations,  and  which,  to  be  comprehended  at  all,  must  be 
experienced  and  studied  in  the  section  of  its  purest  and  most 
powerful  expression  —  the  virile  West. 

HIS   NOVELS   FOUNDED  ON  TRUTH 

Throughout  his  short  and  brilliant  career,  Norris  was  an 
observer  and  student  of  affairs  as  well  as  an  active  participant  in 
the  life  around  him.  He  strove  from  the  beginning  to  establish 
for  himself  a  working  theory  of  the  novelist's  function  and  art. 
This  he  was  rapidly  developing  into  a  complete  philosophy,  and 
had  completed  two  novels  of  the  "trilogy"  that  was  to  illustrate 
his  ideas,  when  death  overtook  him.  Nevertheless  the  uncom- 


4  THE     COMPLETE     WORKS     OF     FRANK     NORRIS 

pleted  design  clearly  reveals  that  these  principles  were  founded 
on  the  truth — not  the  whole  of  it,  it  may  be,  but  still  nothing 
but  the  truth. 

AN   ARTIST  TO  THE   FINGER  TIPS 

The  sincerity  of  the  author  is  shown  in  every  line  he  has 
written.  Norris  "took  himself  seriously,"  yet  there  was  no 
trace  of  the  Pharisee  or  the  pedant  in  his  manner.  Rather  he 
was  an  artist  to  his  finger  tips.  Everything  he  undertook  be- 
came for  the  time  being  the  most  important  thing  in  the  world 
to  him.  His  slightest  story  is  an  achievement  of  some  problem 
in  literary  construction  on  which  he  had  set  his  whole  mind. 
Hence  everything  he  has  written  is  worth  careful  reading,  is 
worth  studying — not,  as  with  the  novelists  of  the  Henry  James 
type,  on  account  of  hidden,  delicate,  shadowy  effects,  but  on 
the  contrary,  because  of  the  lucidity  of  its  meaning  and  the 
palpable  power  of  its  purpose.  There  is  a  double  joy  in  read- 
ing the  work  of  Norris:  that  in  the  story's  effect,  a  pleasure 
which  the  author  has  consciously  planned,  and  Norris's  own 
delight  in  the  story's  construction,  in  which  enjoyment  he  un- 
consciously allows  us  to  share. 

Norris's   Creed 

The  essays  of  Norris  are  exceedingly  helpful  in  guiding  us 
to  this  inner  joy  in  his  novels.  Here  we  see  his  devotion  to 
truth,  his  happiness  in  doing  sincere  work.  Thus  he  says  in 
the  essay,  "The  True  Reward  of  the  Novelist": 

"To  make  money  is  not  the  province  of  a  novelist.  If 
he  be  the  right  sort  he  has  other  responsibilities,  heavy  ones. 
He,  of  all  men,  can  not  think  only  of  himself  and  for  himself. 
And  when  the  last  page  is  written,  and  the  ink  crusts  on  the 
pen-point,  and  the  hungry  presses  go  clashing  after  another 
writer,  the  'new  man'  and  the  new  fashions  of  the  hour,  he 
will  think  of  the  grim  long  grind,  of  the  years  of  his  life  that 
he  has  put  behind  him  and  of  his  work  that  he  built  up,  vol- 
ume by  volume — sincere  work,  telling  the  truth  as  he  saw  it, 
independent  of  fashion  and  the  gallery  gods,  holding  to  these 


THE    COMPLETE    WORKS    OF    FRANK     NORRIS  5 

with  gripped  hands  and  shut  teeth — he  will  think  of  all  this 
then,  and  he  will  be  able  to  say,  *I  never  truckled,  I  never 
took  off  the  hat  to  Fashion  and  held  it  out  for  pennies.  By  God, 
I  told  them  the  truth.  They  liked  it  or  they  didn't  like  it. 
What  had  that  to  do  with  me?  I  told  them  the  truth ;  I  knew 
it  for  the  truth  then,  and  I  know  it  for  the  truth  now.'  And 
that  is  his  reward — the  best  that  a  man  may  know;  the  only 
one  really  worth  the  striving  for." 

AN    EXPONENT   OF   THE   STRENUOUS   LIFE 

And  as  we  are  enlightened  through  these  essays  upon  the 
author's  ethics,  his  moral  creed,  so  we  learn  from  them  of  his 
aesthetics,  his  artistic  philosophy.  Here  we  behold  Norris  as 
the  literary  exponent  of  the  Rooseveltian  ideal  of  Americanism, 
the  strenuous  life.  In  the  essay,  "Novelists  of  the  Future," 
he  has  this  to  say  of 

The  Muse  of  American  Fiction 

4 'The  muse  of  American  fiction  is  no  chaste,  delicate, 
superfine  mademoiselle  of  delicate  poses  and  'elegant'  attitu- 
dinizings,  but  a  robust,  red-armed  bonne  fernme^  who  rough-shoul- 
ders her  way  among  men  and  among  affairs,  who  finds  a  healthy 
pleasure  in  the  jostlings  of  the  mob  and  a  hearty  delight 
in  the  honest,  rough-and-tumble,  Anglo-Saxon  give-and-take 
knockabout  that  for  us  means  life.  Choose  her,  instead  of 
the  sallow,  pale-faced  statue- like  creature,  with  the  foolish,  up- 
turned eyes,  and  she  will  lead  you  as  brave  a  march  as  ever 
drum  tapped  to.  Stay  at  her  elbow  and  obey  her  as  she  tells 
you  to  open  your  eyes  and  ears  and  heart,  and  as  you  go  she 
will  show  things  wonderful  beyond  wonder  in  this  great,  new, 
blessed  country  of  ours,  will  show  you  a  life  untouched,  un- 
tried, full  of  new  blood  and  promise  and  vigor. 

"She  is  a  Child  of  the  People,  this  muse  of  our  fiction  of 
the  future,  and  the  wind  of  a  new  country,  a  new  heaven  and  a 
new  earth  is  in  her  face,  and  has  blown  her  hair  from  out  the 
fillets  that  the  Old  World  muse  has  bound  across  her  brow,  so 
that  it  is  all  in  disarray.  The  tan  of  the  sun  is  on  her  cheeks, 


6  THE    COMPLETE    WORKS    OF    FRANK    NORRIS 

and  the  dust  of  the  highway  is  thick  upon  her  buskin,  and  the 
elbowing  of  many  men  has  torn  the  robe  of  her,  and  her  hands 
are  hard  with  the  grip  of  many  things.  She  is  hail-fellow-well- 
met  with  every  one  she  meets,  unashamed  to  know  the  clown, 
and  unashamed  to  face  the  king — a  hardy,  vigorous  girl,  with  an 
arm  as  strong  as  a  man's  and  a  heart  as  sensitive  as  a  child's. 
**  Believe  me,  she  will  lead  you  far  from  the  studios  and  the 
aesthetes,  the  velvet  jackets  and  the  uncut  hair,  far  from  the  sex- 
less creatures  who  cultivate  their  little  art  of  writing  as  the  fan- 
cier cultivates  his  orchid.  Tramping  along,  then,  with  a  stride 
that  will  tax  your  best  paces,  she  will  lead  you — if  you  are 
humble  with  her  and  honest  with  her — straight  into  a  World  of 
Working  Men,  crude  of  speech,  swift  ,of  action,  strong  of  pas- 
sion, straight  to  the  heart  of  a  new  life,  on  the  borders  of  a 
new  time,  and  there  and  there  only  will  you  learn  to  know  the 
stuff  of  which  must  come  the  American  fiction  of  the  future. ' ' 

THE   OCTOPUS 

In  this,  the  first  story  of  his  "Epic  of  the  Wheat,"  Norris 
leads  us  straight  into  the  World  of  Working  Men,  that  plane 
of  labor,  indeed,  which  is  next  to  the  ground — the  closest  to 
Mother  Earth.  Here  we  have  the  story  of  the  farmer,  the  grain- 
grower,  told  as  no  other  writer  has  ever  begun  to  tell  it.  And 
the  scene  he  selects  is  as  large  and  magnificent  as  it  is  typical. 
He  takes  us  to  the  great  grain  fields  of  the  Pacific  coast,  in  the 
San  Joaquin  Valley  of  California.  He  describes  farming  on  the 
large  scale,  and  draws  farmers  with  large  characters  to  match 
that  scale.  These  men  differ  in  morality,  in  temperament,  in 
ability,  but  all  are  men  of  force  and  individuality.  Like  the 
growing  wheat  all  about  them,  their  characters  develop  apace 
before  our  eyes.  The  great  lesson  of  *' whatsoever  a  man  sow- 
eth,  that  shall  he  also  reap"  is  unobtrusively  but  effectively 
wrought  into  the  narrative,  growing  more  impressive  until  it 
forms  the  great  climax  and  catastrophe  of  the  novel.  But  it 
must  not  be  thought  from  this  that  the  book  is  pessimistic  in 
tone:  there  is  another  truth  of  even  greater  moment  impressed 
upon  the  reader,  which  is  teeming  with  promise,  that  of  the 


THE    COMPLETE    WORKS    OF    FRANK    NORRIS  7 

corn  of  wheat  that  dies  in  order  to  bring  forth  much  fruit.  The 
reader  feels  that  the  spirit  of  the  American  farmers  in  resisting 
the  Railroad  Trust,  expressed  by  Norris  in  his  scene  where  the 
armed  ranchmen  await  in  an  irrigation  ditch  the  fire  of  the  rail- 
road's emissaries,  will  triumph  in  the  end.  It  is  the  patriotism 
of  Concord  and  Lexington,  conservative  till  the  crisis  comes, 
and  then  militant  to  the  death,  that  Norris  relies  on  to  save  the 
commonwealth.  Yet  he  recognizes  also  that  there  are  abuses  in 
the  nature  of  things  not  to  be  abated  by  society.  There  is  a 
non-political,  non- social  power  in  the  world,  the  force  of  na- 
ture, represented  here  by  the  Power  of  the  Wheat,  which,  seek- 
ing the  physical  end  for  which  it  was  created,  overwhelms  the 
machinations  of  men,  be  these  for  good  or  evil.  So  the  wheat 
is  carried  on  a  car  of  Juggernaut,  every  revolution  of  whose 
wheels  is  accompanied  by  a  victim's  cry  of  anguish,  toward  the 
only  destination  recognized  by  the  law  of  its  nature,  the  feeding 
of  the  hungry.  Retributive  justice,  however,  overtakes  the  arch- 
villain  of  the  story,  through  the  blind  instrumentality  of  this 
very  wheat  that  he  had  so  manipulated  as  to  be  the  cause  of 
such  wide-reaching  misery.  Inspecting  a  ship  that  is  taking 
on  the  wheat  in  bulk,  the  villain,  who  has  cleverly  evaded  the 
punishment  of  man,  slips,  and  falls  unseen  into  the  rapidly  fill- 
ing hold, — to  meet  the  punishment  of  a  higher  than  human 
power.  There  is  hardly  another  passage  in  fiction  to  equal 
Norris's  graphic  description  of  the  man's  ineffectual  struggle 
against  suffocation  from  the  down- pouring  flood  of  grain. 

Scarcely  less  powerful  than  this  closing  scene  is  a  sustained 
description  of  a  train-robber's  flight  from  the  officers  of  the  law. 
The  fugitive  had  been  a  railroad  engineer,  who,  upon  a  cut  in 
wages,  resigned  his  job  and  invested  his  savings  in  a  hop  farm, 
only  to  see  the  railroad  arbitrarily  raise  its  freight  rate  on  his 
product  to  the  extent  of  wiping  out  his  profits.  He  holds  up 
an  express  car,  and  recoups  himself  by  force  from  the  railroad's 
money.  His  wild  ride  on  horseback,  and  on  an  engine  which  he 
captures,  is  one  of  the  most  thrilling  and  at  the  same  time 
original  episodes  to  be  found  in  literature. 


&  THE    COMPLETE    WORKS    OF    FRANK    NORRIS 

THE    PIT 

In  this  novel  the  fortunes  of  wheat  are  followed  among 
strikingly  different  scenes  and  characters  from  those  of  *'The 
Octopus."  We  are  taken  to  Chicago,  and  there  shown  how 
such  a  naturally  unmercenary  affair  as  a  woman's  love  has  be- 
come deeply  entangled  in  a  sordid  and  selfish  business  deal — a 
corner  in  wheat.  This  book  proves  that  Frank  Norris,  though 
young  in  years  and  of  the  masculine  sex  (if  indeed  these  are  not 
qualifications),  was  deeply  learned  in  the  mind  and  emotions 
of  womankind.  His  heroine  plays  with  several  lovers  as  a  child 
with  flames,  and  the  most  ardent  of  them,  a  masterful  manipu- 
lator of  the  grain  market,  overleaps  the  weak,  feminine  barriers 
she  interposes,  and  wins  her  for  his  wife.  When,  however, 
flushed  with  success  in  love,  he  attempts  the  conquest  of  the  more 
elusive  female,  Fortune,  and  would  coerce  the  most  imperious 
of  her  sex,  old  Mother  Earth  herself,  by  a  monopoly  of  her 
choicest  product,  he  is  utterly  discomfited.  His  fiery  will  is 
overwhelmed  by  a  force  stronger  because  more  elemental  in  its 
nature.  A  flood,  a  deluge  of  wheat,  pours  in  from  every  direc- 
tion upon  his  petty  "corner,"  and  it  collapses  like  a  house  of 
cards. 

The  Retribution  of  the  Wheat 

"There  in  the  Pit  its  first  premonitory  eddies  already  swirled 
and  spun.  If  even  the  first  ripples  of  the  tide  smote  terribly 
upon  the  heart,  what  was  it  to  be  when  the  ocean  itself  burst 
through,  on  its  eternal  way  from  west  to  east?  For  an  instant 
came  clear  vision.  What  were  these  shouting,  gesticulating 
men  of  the  Board  of  Trade,  these  brokers,  traders,  and  specu- 
lators? It  was  not  these  he  fought,  it  was  that  fatal  New  Har- 
vest; it  was  the  Wheat;  it  was — as  Gretry  had  said — the  very 
Earth  itself.  What  were  those  scattered  hundreds  of  farmers  of 
the  Middle  West,  who  because  he  had  put  the  price  so  high  had 
planted  the  grain  as  never  before?  What  had  they  to  do  with 
it?  Why,  the  Wheat  had  grown  itself;  demand  and  supply,  these 
were  the  two  great  laws  the  Wheat  obeyed.  Almost  blasphe- 
mous in  his  effrontery,  he  had  tampered  with  these  laws,  and  had 


THE    COMPLETE    WORKS    OF    FRANK    NORRIS  9 

roused  a  Titan.  He  had  laid  his  puny  human  grasp  upon  Crea- 
tion, and  the  very  Earth  herself,  the  Great  Mother,  feeling  the 
touch  of  the  cobweb  that  the  human  insect  had  spun,  had  stirred 
at  last  in  her  sleep  and  sent  her  omnipotence  moving  through 
the  grooves  of  the  world,  to  find  and  crush  the  disturber  of  her 
appointed  courses." 

McTEAGUE:   A   STORY   OF    SAN   FRANCISCO 

For  the  equal  of  this  powerful,  realistic  study  of  character, 
we  must  go  to  foreign  literature.  Even  there  it  can  hardly  be 
paralleled.  Its  spirit  is  more  sincere  than  de  Maupassant's;  its 
art  cleverer  than  Zola's.  It  is  supremely  a  true  book.  Norris 
has  dropped  the  plummet  within  the  human  heart  clear  to  the 
bottom,  where  lies  the  ultimate  truth.  McTeague,  the  slow, 
stupid,  self-educated  dentist,  and  the  little  German  girl  he  wins 
by  the  compulsion  rather  than  attraction  of  his  passion,  appear 
more  real  to  the  reader  than  any  of  their  class  he  has  ever  met 
in  actual  life,  simply  because  Norris  has  not  despised  their 
commonplace  exterior,  but  has  pierced  beneath,  and  laid  open 
to  us  their  very  souls. 

The  gradual  increase  of  McTeague 's  brutality  with  his  mis- 
fortunes, beginning  with  the  prohibition  of  his  dental  practice, 
and  the  simultaneous  development  of  his  wife's  penuriousness, 
beginning  with  her  drawing  a  lottery  prize,  furnish  a  double  mo- 
tive of  absorbing  interest  to  the  reader,  whose  prescience  foresees 
the  inevitable  tragedy.  The  final  scene  in  Death  Valley  con- 
tains a  most  novel  situation,  that  is  quite  characteristic  of  Nor- 
ris's  endings.  It  alone  is  sufficient  to  give  the  work  a  perma- 
nent place  among  the  classics  of  fiction. 

A    MAN'S    WOMAN 

This  novel  more  fully  than  any  other  of  Norris' s  works 
sets  forth  his  theory  of  the  strenuous  life.  It  opens  with  a 
magnificent  narrative  of  the  hero,  an  Arctic  explorer,  .by  his 
indomitable  will  bringing  home  the  remnant  of  his  wrecked  ex- 
pedition in  the  face  of  seemingly  insuperable  obstacles,  and  it 
ends  by  showing  how  this  will,  diverted  to  selfish  ends  by  the 


1O  THE    COMPLETE    WORKS    OF    FRANK    NORRIS 

growth  in  the  hero's  breast  of  an  overmastering  love,  is  met, 
and  broken,  and  healed  again,  and  tempered  to  its  true  heat  and 
function  by  another  will,  that  of  a  true  and  good  woman —  'a 
man's  woman"  in  all  sincerity,  because  the  right  wife  for  a  self- 
willed  husband. 

BLIX 

The  quality  of  strength,  so  characteristic  of  Norris  in  his 
other  works,  is  here  absent,  but  that  of  sincerity,  and  of  the 
disdain  of  insincerity,  remains  in  fullest  measure.  In  addition, 
we  have  a  thread  of  gayety,  of  light-hearted  camaraderie  between 
youth  and  maiden,  running  throughout  the  slight  plot.  It  would 
seem  that  Norris  was  describing  his  own  character,  and  his  ex- 
periences in  San  Francisco  and  New  York.  We  are  permitted 
an  inside  view  of  a  young  novelist  in  the  making — and  of  a  young 
lover,  too. 

MORAN    OF    THE    LADY    LETTY 

This  novelette  is  constructed  upon  a  carefully-thought-out 
plan  that  lifts  it  far  above  the  usual  story  of  adventure.  It  con- 
tains thrilling  incidents,  unexpected  situations,  and  bizarre  char- 
acters, it  is  true,  but  all  are  fitted  into  a  single  artistic  design. 
The  materials  are  like  those  of  W.  Clark  Russell,  the  author  of 
so  many  entertaining  sea  romances,  but  the  motive  recalls  a  far 
greater  story  writer,  Robert  Louis  Stevenson,  and  the  manner, 
while  reminiscent  of  Kipling,  is  essentially  original. 

A  young  San  Francisco  society  man  is  shanghaied  or  kid- 
napped upon  a  vessel  owned  and  manned  by  Chinese  (with  the 
exception  of  the  captain,  an  American).  The  ostensible  object 
of  the  voyage  is  to  collect  sharks'  fins  and  livers,  but  the  hero 
soon  discovers  in  the  captain  a  beachcombing  pirate,  one  ready 
for  all  sorts  of  pickings. 

They  board  a  seemingly  abandoned  vessel,  however,  one 
half-dead  youth  is  discovered  on  it,  who,  later,  turns  out  to  be 
the  daughter  and  sole  heir  of  the  captain  and  owner  of  the  dere- 
lict. The  circumvention  of  the  piratical  captain,  involving  a 
fight  with  beachcombers,  the  discovery  of  a  strange  treasure, 
etc.,  furnish  the  exciting  plot.  The  artistic  and  to  some  ex- 


THE    COMPLETE    WORKS    OF    FRANK    NORRIS  II 

tent  the  moral  purpose  of  the  book  is  clearly  seen  to  be  the 
contrast  between  the  drone-like  existence  of  the  hero  as  a  social 
parasite,  and  his  strong,  virile  life  as  a  man  roused  to  action  by 
a  woman,  whose  strenuous  nature  throws  back  to  the  days  of 
Amazons  and  Valkyries. 

ESSAYS    ON    AUTHORSHIP 

The  nature  of  these  remarkable  writings  has  already  been 
indicated  by  the  preceding  quotations:  **Norris's  Creed"  and 
"The  Muse  of  American  Fiction."  It  remains  only  to  be  said 
that  the  literary  aspirant  can  find  no  better  book  to  guide  him 
in  his  career:  to  reduce  his  roseate  anticipations  to  prospects 
within  reason;  to  save  him  from  errors  into  which  almost  all 
young  authors  fall ;  and  to  give  him  practical  advice  concerning 
his  relations  to  publisher  and  public.  And  the  general  reader 
of  fiction  is  also  enlightened  concerning  literary  values  in  a  way 
to  enhance  doubly  his  pleasure  in  a  good  novel,  and  to  explain 
clearly  his  former  puzzlement  over  meretricious  fiction.  For 
Frank  Norris  was  among  the  first  of  a  new  crop  of  constructive 
critics  that  have  arisen  to  tear  down  the  false  and  hurtful  veil 
of  mystery  with  which,  from  time  immemorial,  the  author's  pro- 
fession has  been  surrounded,  and  to  reveal  this  in  its  true  light, 
as  straight,  practical  handicraft,  with  as  definite  laws  and  prin- 
ciples as  any  other  trade. 

EXAMPLE    OF    NORRIS'S   GRAPHIC    STYLE 

As  an  example  of  Norris's  masterly  handling  of  a  scene  de- 
manding the  most  graphic  powers  of  description,  the  following 
selection  from  "The  Pit"  is  here  presented: 

The  Smashing  of  the  Corner 

"  Landry  and  the  other  Gretry  traders  hurried  from  the  office 
up  to  the  floor.  Landry 's  heart  was  beating  thick  and  slow  and 
hard,  his  teeth  were  shut  tight.  Every  nerve,  every  fibre  of 
him  braced  itself  with  the  rigidity  of  drawn  wire,  to  meet  the 
issue  of  the  impending  hours.  Now  was  to  come  the  last 


12  THE     COMPLETE     WORKS    OF     FRANK    NORRIS 

grapple.  He  had  never  lived  through  a  crisis  such  as  this  before. 
Would  he  prevail,  would  he  keep  his  head?  Would  he  avoid 
or  balk  the  thousand  and  one  little  subterfuges,  tricks,  and  traps 
that  the  hostile  traders  would  prepare  for  him — prepare  with  a 
quickness,  a  suddenness  that  all  but  defied  the  sharpest,  keenest 
watchfulness? 

"  Was  the  gong  never  going  to  strike?  He  found  himself, 
all  at  once,  on  the  edge  of  the  Wheat  Pit.  It  was  jammed 
tight  with  the  crowd  of  traders,  and  the  excitement  that  disen- 
gaged itself  from  that  tense,  vehement  crowd  of  white  faces 
and  glittering  eyes  was  veritably  sickening,  veritably  weaken- 
ing. Men  on  either  side  of  him  were  shouting  mere  incoheren- 
cies,  to  which  nobody,  not  even  themselves,  were  listening. 
Others,  silent,  gnawed  their  nails  to  the  quick,  breathing  rap- 
idly, audibly  even,  their  nostrils  expanding  and  contracting. 
All  around  roared  the  vague  thunder  that  since  early  morning 
had  shaken  the  building.  In  the  Pit  the  bids  leaped  to  and 
fro,  though  the  time  of  opening  had  not  yet  come;  the  very 
planks  underfoot  seemed  spinning  about  in  the  first  huge  warning 
swirl  of  the  Pit's  centripetal  convulsion.  There  was  dizziness 
in  the  air.  Something,  some  infinite,  immeasurable  power,  on- 
rushing  in  its  eternal  courses,  shook  the  Pit  in  its  grasp.  Some- 
thing deafened  the  ears,  blinded  the  eyes,  dulled  and  numbed 
the  mind,  with  its  roar,  with  the  chaff  and  dust  of  its  whirlwind 
passage,  with  the  stupefying  sense  of  its  power,  coeval  with  the 
earthquake  and  glacier,  merciless,  all-powerful,  a  primal  basic 
throe  of  creation  itself,  unassailable,  inviolate,  and  untamed. 

"  Had  the  trading  begun  ?  Had  the  gong  struck?  Landry 
never  knew,  never  so  much  as  heard  the  clang  of  the  great  bell. 
All  at  once  he  was  fighting;  all  at  once  he  was  caught,  as  it 
were,  from  off  the  stable  earth,  and  flung  headlong  into  the  heart 
and  centre  of  the  Pit.  What  he  did,  he  could  not  say;  what 
went  on  about  him,  he  could  not  distinguish.  He  only  knew 
that  roar  was  succeeding  roar,  that  there  was  crashing  through 
his  ears;  through  his  very  brain,  the  combined  bellow  of  a  hun- 
dred Niagaras.  Hands  clutched  and  tore  at  him,  his  own  tore 
and  clutched  in  turn.  The  Pit  was  mad,  was  drunk  and  fren- 


THE    COMPLETE     WORKS     OF     FRANK     NORRIS  IJ 

zied;  not  a  man  of  all  those  who  fought  and  scrambled  and 
shouted  who  knew  what  he  or  his  neighbor  did.  They  only 
knew  that  a  support  long  thought  to  be  secure  was  giving  way, 
not  gradually,  not  evenly,  but  by  horrible  collapses  and  equally 
horrible  upward  leaps.  Now  it  held,  now  it  broke,  now  it 
re-formed  again,  rose  again,  then  again  in  hideous  cataclysms 
fell  from  beneath  their  feet  to  lower  depths  than  before.  The 
official  reporter  leaned  back  in  his  place,  helpless.  On  the 
wall  overhead,  the  indicator  on  the  dial  was  rocking  back  and 
forth,  like  the  mast  of  a  ship  caught  in  a  monsoon,  the  price 
of  July  wheat  no  man  could  so  much  as  approximate.  The 
fluctuations  were  no  longer  by  fractions  of  a  cent,  but  by  ten 
cents,  fifteen  cents,  twenty-five  cents  at  a  time.  On  one  side 
of  the  Pit  wheat  sold  at  ninety  cents,  on  the  other  at  a  dollar 
and  a  quarter. 

"And  all  the  while  above  the  din  upon  the  floor,  above  the 
tramplings  and  the  shoutings  in  the  Pit,  there  seemed  to  thrill 
and  swell  that  appalling  roar  of  the  wheat  itself  coming  in,  com- 
ing on  like  a  tidal  wave,  bursting  through,  dashing  barriers 
aside,  rolling  like  a  measureless,  almighty  river,  from  the  farms 
of  Iowa  and  the  ranches  of  California,  on  to  the  East — to  the 
bakeshops  and  hungry  mouths  of  Europe. 

"And  straight  into  the  turmoil  and  confusion  of  the  Pit,  to 
the  scene  of  so  many  of  his  victories,  the  battleground  whereon 
again  and  again,  his  enemies  routed,  he  had  remained  the  victor 
undisputed,  undismayed,  came  the  *  Great  Bull.'  No  sooner 
had  he  set  foot  within  the  entrance  to  the  floor  than  the  news 
went  flashing  and  flying  from  lip  to  lip.  The  galleries  knew  it, 
the  public  room  and  the  Western  Union  knew  it,  the  telephone 
booths  knew  it,  and  lastly  even  the  Wheat  Pit,  torn  and  tossed 
and  rent  asunder  by  the  force  this  man  himself  had  unchained, 
knew  it,  and,  knowing,  stood  dismayed. 

"  For  even  then,  so  great  had  been  his  power,  so  complete 
his  dominion,  and  so  well-rooted  the  fear  which  he  had  inspired, 
that  this  last  move  in  the  great  game  he  had  been  playing,  this  un- 
expected, direct,  personal  assumption  of  control,  struck  a  sense 
of  consternation  into  the  heart  of  the  hardiest  of  his  enemies. 


14  THE     COMPLETE     WORKS     OF     FRANK     NORRIS 

"Jadwin  himself,  the  great  man,  the  'Great  Bull'  in  the 
Pit!  What  was  about  to  happen?  Had  they  been  too  prema- 
ture in  their  hope  of  his  defeat?  Had  he  been  preparing  some 
secret,  unexpected  manoeuvre?  For  a  second  they  hesitated, 
then,  moved  by  a  common  impulse,  feeling  the  push  of  the  won- 
derful new  harvest  behind  them,  they  gathered  themselves  to- 
gether for  the  final  assault,  and  again  offered  the  wheat  for  sale ; 
offered  it  by  thousands  upon  thousands  of  bushels ;  poured,  as  it 
were,  reapings  of  entire  principalities  out  upon  the  floor  of  the 
Board  of  Trade. 

"Jadwm  was  in  the  thick  of  the  confusion  by  now.  And  the 
avalanche,  the  undiked  Ocean  of  the  Wheat,  leaping  to  the  lash 
of  the  hurricane,  struck  him  fairly  in  the  face. 

"  He  heard  it  now;  he  heard  nothing  else.  The  Wheat  had 
broken  from  his  control.  For  months  he  had,  by  the  might  of 
his  single  arm,  held  it  back ;  but  now  it  rose  like  the  upbuilding 
of  a  colossal  billow.  It  towered,  towered,  hung  poised  an  in- 
stant, and  then,  with  a  thunder  as  of  the  grind  and  crash  of 
chaotic  worlds,  broke  upon  him,  burst  through  the  Pit  and  raced 
past  him  on  and  on  to  the  eastward  and  to  the  hungry  nations. 

"And  then,  under  the  stress  and  violence  of  the  hour,  some- 
thing snapped  in  his  brain.  The  murk  behind  his  eyes  had  been 
suddenly  pierced  by  a  white  flash.  The  strange  qualms  and  tiny 
nervous  paroxysms  of  the  last  few  months  all  at  once  culminated 
in  some  indefinite,  indefinable  crisis,  and  the  wheels  and  cogs  of 
all  activities  save  one  lapsed  away  and  ceased.  Only  one  func- 
tion of  the  complicated  machine  persisted ;  but  it  moved  with  a 
rapidity  of  vibration  that  seemed  to  be  tearing  the  tissues  of 
being  to  shreds,  while  its  rhythm  beat  out  the  old  and  terrible 
cadence:  'Wheat- wheat-wheat,  wheat-wheat-wheat.' 

"  Blind  and  insensate,  Jadwin  strove  against  the  torrent  of 
the  Wheat.  There  in  the  middle  of  the  Pit,  surrounded  and 
assaulted  by  herd  after  herd  of  wolves  yelping  for  his  destruc- 
tion, he  stood  braced,  rigid,  upon  his  feet,  his  head  up,  his 
hand,  the  great  bony  hand  that  once  had  held  the  whole  Pit  in 
its  grip,  flung  high  in  the  air,  in  a  gesture  of  defiance,  while  his 
voice,  like  the  clangor  of  bugles  sounding  to  the  charge  of  the 


THE    COMPLETE    WORKS    OF    FRANK     NORRIS  15 

forlorn   hope,   rang  out  again   and   again,   over  the  din  of  his 
enemies: 

"  'Give  a  dollar  for  July — give  a  dollar  for  July!1 

With  one  accord  they  leaped  upon  him.  The  little  group 
of  his  traders  was  swept  aside.  Landry  alone,  Landry,  who  had 
never  left  his  side  since  his  rush  from  out  Gretry's  office,  Landry 
Court,  loyal  to  the  last,  his  one  remaining  soldier,  white,  shaking, 
the  sobs  strangling  in  his  throat,  clung  to  him  desperately.  An- 
other billow  of  wheat  was  preparing.  They  two— the  beaten 
general  and  his  young  armor- bearer — heard  it  coming;  hissing, 
raging,  bellowing,  it  swept  down  upon  them.  Landry  uttered  a 
cry.  Flesh  and  blood  could  not  stand  this  strain.  He  cowered 
at  his  chief's  side,  his  shoulders  bent,  one  arm  above  his  head, 
as  if  to  ward  off  an  actual  physical  force. 

"But  Jadwin,  iron  to  the  end,  stood  erect.  All  unknowing 
what  he  did,  he  had  taken  Landry 's  hand  in  his,  and  the  boy  felt 
the  grip  on  his  fingers  like  the  contracting  of  a  vise  of  steel. 
The  other  hand,  as  though  holding  up  a  standard,  was  still  in 
the  air,  and  his  great  deep-toned  voice  went  out  across  the  tumult, 
proclaiming  to  the  end  his  battle-cry: 

*  *Give  a  dollar  for  July — give  a  dollar  for  July!' 

"But,  little  by  little,  Landry  became  aware  that  the  tumult 
of  the  Pit  was  intermitting.  There  was  sudden  lapsing  in  the 
shouting,  and  in  these  lapses  he  could  hear  from  somewhere  out 
upon  the  floor  voices  that  were  crying:  'Order — order,  order, 
gentlemen.1 

"But  again  and  again  the  clamor  broke  out.  It  would  die 
down  for  an  instant,  in  response  to  these  appeals,  only  to  burst 
out  afresh  as  certain  groups  of  traders  started  the  pandemonium 
again  by  the  wild  outcrying  of  their  offers.  At  last,  however, 
the  older  men  in  the  Pit,  regaining  some  measure  of  self-con- 
trol, took  up  the  word,  going  to  and  fro  in  the  press,  repeating 
*  Order,  order.' 

"  And  then,  all  at  once,  the  Pit,  the  entire  floor  of  the  Board 
of  Trade  was  struck  dumb.  All  at  once  the  tension  was  relaxed, 
the  furious  struggling  and  stamping  was  stilled.  Landry,  bewil- 
dered, still  holding  his  chief  by  the  hand,  looked  about  him. 


1 6  THE     COMPLETE     WORKS     OF     FRANK     MORRIS 

On  the  floor,  near  at  hand,  stood  the  president  of  the  Board  of 
Trade  himself,  and  with  him  the  vice-president  and  a  group  of 
the  directors.  Evidently  it  had  been  these  who  had  called  the 
traders  to  order.  But  it  was  not  toward  them  now  that  the 
hundreds  of  men  in  the  Pit  and  on  the  floor  were  looking. 

"In  the  little  balcony  on  the  south  wall  opposite  the  visitors* 
gallery  a  figure  had  appeared,  a  tall,  grave  man  in  a  long  black 
coat — the  secretary  of  the  Board  of  Trade.  Landry  with  the 
others  saw  him,  saw  him  advance  to  the  edge  of  the  railing,  and 
fix  his  glance  upon  the  Wheat  Pit.  In  his  hand  he  carried  a  slip 
of  paper. 

"And  then  in  the  midst  of  that  profound  silence  the  secre- 
tary announced : 

"  'All  trades  with  Gretry,  Converse  &  Co.  must  be  closed  at 
once. ' 

"The  words  had  not  ceased  to  echo  in  the  high  vaultings  of 
the  roof  before  they  were  greeted  with  a  wild,  shrill  yell  of  exul- 
tation and  triumph,  that  burst  from  the  crowding  masses  in  the 
Wheat  Pit. 

"Beaten;  beaten  at  last,  the  Great  Bull!  Smashed!  The 
great  corner  smashed !  Jadwin  busted !  They  themselves  saved, 
saved,  saved!  Cheer  followed  upon  cheer,  yell  after  yell.  Hats 
went  into  the  air.  In  a  frenzy  of  delight  men  danced  and  leaped 
and  capered  upon  the  edge  of  the  Pit,  clasping  their  arms 
about  each  other,  shaking  each  others'  hands,  cheering  and 
hurrahing  till  their  strained  voices  became  hoarse  and  faint." 


'  SELL    A    THOUSAND     MAY     AT    ONE-FIFTY/     VOCIFERATED    THE 
BEAR    BROKER  " 


«  MY    CURSE    IS    ON     HER    WHO    NEXT    KISSES    YOU 


The  Complete  H^orks  of  Frank  Norris 


THE  OCTOPUS 

The  Epic  of  the  Wheat 


A  STORY  OF 
CALIFORNIA 


NEW  YORK   P.  F.  COLLIER  &  SON    PUBLISHERS 


COPYRIGHT,     1901,    BY 
DOUBLEDAY,    PAGE    4    CO. 


DEDICATED 

TO 
MY     WIFE 


NORRIS — I — I. 


I  sons  of  Magnus  Derrick. 


PRINCIPAL  CHARACTERS   IN    THE  NOVEL 

MAGNUS    DERRICK   (the  "Governor"),    proprietor   of   the   Los   MUERTOS 

RANCHO. 

ANNIE  DERRICK,  wife  of  Magnus  Derrick. 
LYMAN  DERRICK, 
HARRAN  DERRICK 

BRODERSON,  >  , 

[  friends  and  neighbors  of  Magnus  Derrick. 

OSTERMAN,      ) 

ANNIXTER,  proprietor  of  the  QUIEN  SABE  RANCHO. 

HILMA  TREE,  a  dairy  girl  on  Annfxter's  ranch. 

GENSLINGER,  editor  of  the  Bonneville  "Mercury,"  the  Railroad  organ. 

S.  BEHRMAN,  representative  of  the  Pacific  and  Southwestern  Railroad, 

PRESLEY,  a  protegt  of  Magnus  Derrick. 

VANAMEE,  a  sheep  herder  and  range  rider. 

ANG£LE  VARIAN. 

FATHER  SARRIA,  a  Mission  Priest. 

DYKE,  a  blacklisted  railroad  engineer. 

MRS.  DYKE,  Dyke's  mother. 

SIDNEY  DYKE,  Dyke's  daughter. 

CARAHER,  a  saloonkeeper. 

HOOVEN,  a  tenant  of  Derrick. 

MRS.  HOOVEN,  his  wife. 

MINNA  HOOVEN,  his  daughter. 

CEDARQUIST,  a  manufacturer  and  shipbuilder. 

MRS.  CEDARQUIST,  his  wife. 

GARNETT, 

DABNEY, 

\  ranchers  of  the  San  Joaqum  Valley. 
KEAST, 

CHATTERN, 


The  Trilogy  of  The  Epic  of  the  Wheat  will  include  the  fol- 
lowing novels: 

THE  OCTOPUS,  a  Story  of  California. 
THE  PIT,  a  Story  of  Chicago. 
THE  WOLF,  a  Story  of  Europe. 

These  novels,  while  forming  a  series,  will  be  in  no  way  con- 
nected with  each  other  save  only  in  their  relation  to  (i)  the  pro- 
duction, (2)  the  distribution,  (3)  the  consumption  of  American 
wheat.  Whien  complete,  they  will  form  the  story  of  a  crop  of 
wheat  from  the  time  of  its  sowing  as  seed  in  California  to  the  time 
of  its  consumption  as  bread  in  a  village  of  Western  Europe. 

The  first  novel,  "The  Octopus,"  deals  with  the  war  between 
the  wheat  grower  and  the  Railroad  Trust ;  the  second,  "The  Pit," 
will  be  the  fictitious  narrative  of  a  "deal"  in  the  Chicago  wheat 
pit ;  while  the  third,  "The  Wolf,"  will  probably  have  for  its  pivotal 
episode  the  relieving  of  a  famine  in  an  Old  World  community. 

F.  N. 

ROSELLE,  NEW  JERSEY, 
December  15,  1900. 


THE    OCTOPUS 
A  STORY  OF  CALIFORNIA 


:  V 

•^•^••^•~  i.u 


POATCS,  M8«.,*.' 


a.  Osterman's  Ranch  House. 
4.  Annixter's  Ranch  House. 


8.  Derrick's  Ranch  House. 

9.  Br oder son's  Ranch  House. 


MAP  OF  THE  COUNTRY  DESCRIBED  IN   "THE  OCTOPUS/ 


THE     OCTOPUS 


BOOK     I 

I 

JUST  after  passing  Caraher's  saloon,  on  the  County  Road  that 
ran  south  from  Bonneville,  and  that  divided  the  Broderson  ranch 
from  that  of  Los  Muertos,  Presley  was  suddenly  aware  of  the  faint 
and  prolonged  blowing  of  a  steam  whistle  that  he  knew  must 
come  from  the  railroad  shops  near  the  depot  at  Bonneville.  In  start- 
ing out  from  the  ranch  house  that  morning,  he  had  forgotten  his 
watch,  and  was  now  perplexed  to  know  whether  the  whistle  was 
blowing  for  twelve  or  for  one  o'clock.  He  hoped  the  former. 
Early  that  morning  he  had  decided  to  make  a  long  excursion  through 
the  neighboring  country,  partly  on  foot  and  partly  on  his  bicycle, 
and  now  noon  was  come  already,  and  as  yet  he  had  hardly  started. 
As  he  was  leaving  the  house  after  breakfast,  Mrs.  Derrick  had 
asked  him  to  go  for  the  mail  at  Bonneville,  and  he  had  not  been  able 
to  refuse. 

He  took  a  firmer  hold  of  the  cork  grips  of  his  handle-bars— 
the  road  being  in  a  wretched  condition  after  the  recent  hauling  of 
the  crop — and  quickened  his  pace.  He  told  himself  that,  no  matter 
what  the  time  was,  he  would  not  stop  for  luncheon  at  the  ranch 
house,  but  would  push  on  to  Guadalajara  and  have  a  Spanish  din- 
ner at  Solotari's,  as  he  had  originally  planned. 

There  had  not  been  much  of  a  crop  to  haul  that  year.  Half 
of  the  wheat  on  the  Broderson  ranch  had  failed  entirely,  and  Der- 
rick himself  had  hardly  raised  more  than  enough  to  supply  seed 
for  the  winter's  sowing.  But  such  little  hauling  as  there  had  been 
had  reduced  the  roads  thereabout  to  a  lamentable  condition,  and, 
during  the  dry  season  of  the  past  few  months,  the  layer  of  dust  had 
deepened  and  thickened  to  such  an  extent  that  more  than  once 
Presley  was  obliged  to  dismount  and  trudge  along  on  foot,  pushing 
his  bicycle  in  front  of  him. 

(7) 


8  The  Octopus 

It  was  the  last  half  of  September,  the  very  end  of  the  dry 
season,  and  all  Tulare  County,  all  the  vast"  reaches  of  the  San 
Joaquin  Valley — in  fact  all  South  Central  California,  was  bone  dry, 
parched,  and  baked  and  crisped  after  four  months  of  cloudless 
weather,  when  the  day  seemed  always  at  noon,  and  the  sun  blazed 
white  hot  over  the  valley  from  the  coast  range  in  the  west  to  the 
foothills  of  the  Sierras  in  the  east. 

As  Presley  drew  near  to  the  point  where  what  was  known  as  the 
Lower  Road  struck  off  through  the  Rancho  de  Los  Muertos,  leading 
on  to  Guadalajara,  he  came  upon  one  of  the  county  watering-tanks, 
a  great,  iron-hooped  tower  of  wood,  straddling  clumsily  on  its 
four  uprights  by  the  roadside.  Since  the  day  of  its  completion,  the 
storekeepers  and  retailers  of  Bonneville  had  painted  their  advertise- 
ments upon  it.  It  was  a  landmark.  In  that  reach  of  level  fields, 
the  white  letters  upon  it  could  be  read  for  miles.  A  watering-trough 
stood  nearby,  and,  as  he  was  very  thirsty,  Presley  resolved  to  stop  for 
a  moment  to  get  a  drink. 

He  drew  abreast  of  the  tank  and  halted  there,  leaning  his  bicycle 
against  the  fence.  A  couple  of  men  in  white  overalls  were  repaint- 
ing the  surface  of  the  tank,  seated  on  swinging  platforms  that  hung 
by  hooks  from  the  roof.  They  were  painting  a  sign — an  advertise- 
ment. It  was  all  but  finished  and  read,  "S.  Behrman,  Real  Estate, 
Mortgages,  Main  Street,  Bonneville,  Opposite  the  Post  Office."  On 
the  horse-trough  that  stood  in  the  shadow  of  the  tank  was  another 
freshly  painted  inscription:  "S.  Behrman  Has  Something  To  Say 
To  You." 

As  Presley  straightened  up  after  drinking  from  the  faucet  at 
one  end  of  the  horse-trough,  the  watering-cart  itself  labored  into 
view  around  the  turn  of  the  Lower  Road.  Two  mules  and  two 
horses,  white  with  dust,  strained  leisurely  in  the  traces,  moving  at 
a  snail's  pace,  their  limp  ears  marking  the  time;  while  perched 
high  upon  the  seat,  under  a  yellow  cotton  wagon  umbrella,  Presley 
recognized  Hooven,  one  of  Derrick's  tenants,  a  German,  whom 
every  one  called  "Bismarck,"  an  excitable  little  man  with  a  per- 
petual grievance  and  an  endless  flow  of  broken  English. 

"Hello,  Bismarck,"  said  Presley,  as  Hooven  brought  his  team 
to  a  standstill  by  the  tank,  preparatory  to  refilling. 

"Yoost  der  men  I  look  for,  Mist'r  Praicely,"  cried  the  other, 
twisting  the  reins  around  the  brake.  "Yoost  one  minute,  you  wait, 
hey?  I  wanta  talk  mit  you." 

Presley  was  impatient  to  be  on  his  way  again.     A  little  more 


A  Story  of  California  9 

time  wasted,  and  the  day  would  be  lost.  He  had  nothing  to  do  with 
the  management  of  the  ranch,  and  if  Hooven  wanted  any  advice 
from  him,  it  was  so  much  breath  wasted.  These  uncouth  brutes  of 
farmhands  and  petty  ranchers,  grimed  with  the  soil  they  worked 
upon,  were  odious  to  him  beyond  words.  Never  could  he  feel  in 
sympathy  with  them,  nor  with  their  lives,  their  ways,  their  mar- 
riages, deaths,  bickerings,  and  all  the  monotonous  round  of  their 
sordid  existence. 

"Well,  you  must  be  quick  about  it,  Bismarck,"  he  answered 
sharply.  "I'm  late  for  dinner  as  it  is." 

"Soh,  now.  Two  minuten,  und  I  be  mit  you."  He  drew  down 
the  overhanging  spout  of  the  tank  to  the  vent  in  the  circumference 
of  the  cart  and  pulled  the  chain  that  let  out  the  water.  Then  he 
climbed  down  from  the  seat,  jumping  from  the  tire  of  the  wheel, 
and  taking  Presley  by  the  arm  led  him  a  few  steps  down  the  road. 

"Say,"  he  began.  "Say,  I  want  to  hef  some  converzations  mit 
you.  Yoost  der  men  I  want  to  see.  Say,  Caraher,  he  tole  me  dis 
morgen — say,  he  tole  me  Mist'r  Derrick  gowun  to  farm  der  whole 
demn  rench  hisseluf  der  next  yahr.  No  more  tenants.  Say,  Caraher, 
he  tole  me  all  der  tenants  get  der  sach;  Mist'r  Derrick  gowun  to 
work  der  whole  demn  rench  hisseluf,  hey?  Me,  I  get  der  sach 
alzoh,  hey?  You  hef  hear  about  dose  ting?  Say,  me,  I  hef  on  der 
ranch  been  sieben  yahr — seven  yahr.  Do  I  alzoh — " 

"You'll  have  to  see  Derrick  himself  or  Harran  about  that,  Bis- 
marck," interrupted  Presley,  trying  to  draw  away.  "That's  some- 
thing outside  of  me  entirely." 

But  Hooven  was  not  to  be  put  off.  No  doubt  he  had  been  medi- 
tating his  speech  all  the  morning,  formulating  his  words,  preparing 
his  phrases. 

"Say,  no,  no,"  he  continued.  "Me,  I  wanta  stay  bei  der  place; 
seven  yahr  I  hef  stay.  Mist'r  Derrick,  he  doand  want  dot  I  should 
be  ge-sacked.  Who,  den,  will  der  ditch  ge-tend  ?  Say,  you  tell  'um 
Bismarck  hef  gotta  sure  stay  bei  der  place.  Say,  you  hef  der  pull 
mit  der  governor.  You  speak  der  gut  word  for  me." 

"Harran  is  the  man  that  has  the  pull  with  his  father,  Bismarck," 
answered  Presley.  "You  get  Harran  to  speak  for  you  and  you're 
all  right." 

"Sieben  yahr  I  hef  stay,"  protested  Hooven,  "and  who  will  der 
ditch  ge-tend,  und  alle  dem  cettles  drive?" 

"Well,  Harran's  your  man,"  answered  Presley,  preparing  to 
mount  his  bicycle. 


io  The  Octopus 

"Say,  you  hef  hear  about  dose  ting?" 

"I  don't  hear  about  anything,  Bismarck.  I  don't  know  the  first 
thing  about  how  the  ranch  is  run." 

"Und  der  pipe-line  ge-mend,"  Hooven  burst  out,  suddenly  re- 
membering a  forgotten  argument.  He  waved  an  arm.  "Ach,  der 
pipe-line  bei  der  Mission  Greek,  und  der  waater-hole  for  dose  cettles. 
Say,  he  doand  doo  ut  himselluf,  berhaps,  I  doand  tink." 

"Well,  talk  to  Harran  about  it." 

"Say,  he  doand  farm  der  whole  demn  rench  bei  hisseluf.  Me, 
I  gotta  stay." 

But  on  a  sudden  the  water  in  the  cart  gushed  over  the  sides 
from  the  vent  in  the  top  with  a  smart  sound  of  splashing.  Hooven 
was  forced  to  turn  his  attention  to  it.  Presley  got  his  wheel  under 
way. 

"I  hef  some  converzations  mit  Herran,"  Hooven  called  after  him. 
"He  doand  doo  ut  bei  hisseluf,  den,  Mist'r  Derrick ;  ach,  no.  I  stay 
bei  der  rench  to  drive  dose  cettles." 

He  climbed  back  to  his  seat  under  the  wagon  umbrella,  and, 
as  he  started  his  team  again  with  great  cracks  of  his  long  whip, 
turned  to  the  painters  still  at  work  upon  the  sign  and  declared  with 
some  defiance : 

"Sieben  yahr ;  yais,  sir,  sieben  yahr  I  hef  been  on  dis  rench.  Git 
oop,  you  mule  you,  hoop !" 

Meanwhile  Presley  had  turned  into  the  Lower  Road.  He  was 
now  on  Derrick's  land,  division  No.  I,  or,  as  it  was  called,  the 
Home  ranch,  of  the  great  Los  Muertos  Rancho.  The  road  was 
better  here,  the  dust  laid  after  the  passage  of  Hooven's  watering-cart, 
and,  in  a  few  minutes,  he  had  come  to  the  ranch  house  itself,  with 
its  white  picket  fence,  its  few  flower  beds,  and  grove  of  eucalyptus 
trees.  On  the  lawn  at  the  side  of  the  house,  he  saw  Harran  in  the 
act  of  setting  out  the  automatic  sprinkler.  In  the  shade  of  the 
house,  by  the  porch,  were  two  or  three  of  the  greyhounds,  part  of 
the  pack  that  were  used  to  hunt  down  jack-rabbits,  and  Godfrey, 
Harran's  prize  deerhound. 

Presley  wheeled  up  the  driveway  and  met  Harran  by  the  horse- 
block. Harran  was  Magnus  Derrick's  youngest  son,  a  very  well- 
looking  young  fellow  of  twenty-three  or  twenty-five.  He  had  the 
fine  carriage  that  marked  his  father,  and  still  further  resembled 
him  in  that  he  had  the  Derrick  nose — hawk-like  and  prominent, 
such  as  one  sees  in  the  later  portraits  of  the  Duke  of  Wellington. 
He  was  blond,  and  incessant  exposure  to  the  sun  had,  instead  of 


A  Story  of  California  II 

tanning  him  brown,  merely  heightened  the  color  of  his  cheeks. 
His  yellow  hair  had  a  tendency  to  curl  in  a  forward  direction,  just 
in  front  of  the  ears. 

Beside  him,  Presley  made  the  sharpest  of  contrasts.  Presley 
seemed  to  have  come  of  a  mixed  origin ;  appeared  to  have  a  nature 
more  composite,  a  temperament  more  complex.  Unlike  Harran 
Derrick,  he  seemed  more  of  a  character  than  a  type.  The  sun  had 
browned  his  face  till  it  was  almost  swarthy.  His  eyes  were  a  dark 
brown,  and  his  forehead  was  the  forehead  of  the  intellectual,  wide 
and  high,  with  a  certain  unmistakable  lift  about  it  that  argued  educa- 
tion, not  only  of  himself,  but  of  his  people  before  him.  The  impres- 
sion conveyed  by  his  mouth  and  chin  was  that  of  a  delicate  and 
highly  sensitive  nature,  the  lips  thin  and  loosely  shut  together,  the 
chin  small  and  rather  receding.  One  guessed  that  Presley's  refine- 
ment had  been  gained  only  by  a  certain  loss  of  strength.  One  expected 
to  find  him  nervous,  introspective,  to  discover  that  his  mental  life 
was  not  at  all  the  result  of  impressions  and  sensations  that  came  to 
him  from  without,  but  rather  of  thoughts  and  reflections  germinating 
from  within.  Though  morbidly  sensitive  to  changes  in  his  physical 
surroundings,  he  would  be  slow  to  act  upon  such  sensations,  would 
not  prove  impulsive,  not  because  he  was  sluggish,  but  because  he 
was  merely  irresolute.  It  could  be  foreseen  that  morally  he  was 
of  that  sort  who  avoid  evil  through  good  taste,  lack  of  decision, 
and  want  of  opportunity.  His  temperament  was  that  of  the  poet; 
when  he  told  himself  he  had  been  thinking,  he  deceived  himself. 
He  had,  on  such  occasions,  been  only  brooding. 

Some  eighteen  months  before  this  time  he  had  been  threatened 
with  consumption,  and,  taking  advantage  of  a  standing  invitation 
on  the  part  of  Magnus  Derrick,  had  come  to  stay  in  the  dry,  even 
climate  of  the  San  Joaquin  for  an  indefinite  length  of  time.  He  was 
thirty  years  old,  and  had  graduated  and  post-graduated  with  high 
honors  from  an  Eastern  college,  where  he  had  devoted  himself  to  a 
passionate  study  of  literature,  and,  more  especially,  of  poetry. 

It  was  his  insatiable  ambition  to  write  verse.  But  up  to  this 
time  his  work  had  been  fugitive,  ephemeral,  a  note  here  and  there, 
heard,  appreciated,  and  forgotten.  He  was  in  search  of  a  subject; 
something  magnificent,  he  did  not  know  exactly  what;  some  vast, 
tremendous  theme,  heroic,  terrible,  to  be  unrolled  in  all  the  thunder- 
ing progression  of  hexameters. 

But  whatever  he  wrote,  and  in  whatever  fashion,  Presley  was 
determined  .that  his  poem  should  be  of  the  West,  that  world's  frontier 


12  The  Octopus 

of  Romance,  where  a  new  race,  a  new  people — hardy,  brave,  and 
passionate — were  building  an  empire;  where  the  tumultuous  life 
ran  like  fire  from  dawn  to  dark,  and  from  dark  to  dawn  again, 
primitive,  brutal,  honest,  and  without  fear.  Something  (to  his 
idea  not  much)  had  been  done  to  catch  at  that  life  in  passing, 
but  its  poet  had  not  yet  arisen.  The  few  sporadic  attempts,  thus 
he  told  himself,  had  only  touched  the  keynote.  He  strove  for  the 
diapason,  the  great  song  that  should  embrace  in  itself  a  whole 
epoch,  a  complete  era,  the  voice  of  an  entire  people,  wherein  all 
people  should  be  included — they  and  their  legends,  their  folk-lore, 
their  fightings,  their  loves  and  their  lusts,  their  blunt,  grim  humor, 
their  stoicism  under  stress,  their  adventures,  their  treasures  found 
in  a  day  and  gambled  in  a  night,  their  direct,  crude  speech,  their 
generosity  and  cruelty,  their  heroism  and  bestiality,  their  religion  and 
profanity,  their  self-sacrifice  and  obscenity — a  true  and  fearless  set- 
ting forth  of  a  passing  phase  of  history,  uncompromising,  sincere; 
each  group  in  its  proper  environment ;  the  valley,  the  plain,  and  the 
mountain ;  the  ranch,  the  range,  and  the  mine — all  this,  all  the  traits 
and  types  of  every  community  from  the  Dakotas  to  the  Mexicos, 
from  Winnipeg  to  Guadalupe,  gathered  together,  swept  together, 
welded  and  riven  together  in  one  single,  mighty  song — the  Song  of 
the  West.  That  was  what  he  dreamed,  while  things  without  names 
— thoughts  for  which  no  man  had  yet  invented  words,  terrible 
formless  shapes,  vague  figures,  colossal,  monstrous,  distorted — 
whirled  at  a  gallop  through  his  imagination. 

As  Harran  came  up,  Presley  reached  down  into  the  pouches  of 
the  sun-bleached  shooting  coat  he  wore  and  drew  out  and  handed 
him  the  packet  of  letters  and  papers. 

"Here's  the  mail.    I  think  I  shall  go  on." 

"But  dinner  is  ready,"  said  Harran;  "we  are  just  sitting  down." 

Presley  shook  his  head.  "No,  I'm  in  a  hurry.  Perhaps  I  shall 
have  something  to  eat  at  Guadalajara.  I  shall  be  gone  all  day." 

He  delayed  a  few  moments  longer,  tightening  a  loose  nut  on  his 
forward  wheel,  while  Harran,  recognizing  his  father's  handwriting 
on  one  of  the  envelopes,  slit  it  open  and  cast  his  eye  rapidly  over  its 
pages. 

"The  Governor  is  coming  home,"  he  exclaimed,  "to-morrow 
morning  on  the  early  train;  wants  me  to  meet  him  with  the  team 
at  Guadalajara;  and"  he  cried  between  his  clinched  teeth,  as  he 
continued  to  read,  "we've  lost  the  case." 

"What  case  ?    Oh,  in  the  matter  of  rates  ?" 


A  Story  of  California  15 

dry,  of  a  cheerless  brown.  BY  the  roadside  the  dust  lay  thick  and 
gray,  and,  on  either  hand,  stretching  on  toward  the  horizon,  losing 
itself  in  a  mere  smudge  in  the  distance,  ran  the  illimitable  parallels 
of  the  wire  fence.  And  that  was  all ;  that  and  the  burned-out  blue 
of  the  sky  and  the  steady  shimmer  of  the  heat. 

The  silence  was  infinite.  After  the  harvest,  small  though  that 
harvest  had  been,  the  ranches  seemed  asleep.  It  was  as  though 
the  earth,  after  its  period  of  reproduction,  its  pains  of  labor,  had 
been  delivered  of  the  fruit  of  its  loins,  and  now  slept  the  sleep  of 
exhaustion. 

It  was  the  period  between  seasons,  when  nothing  was  being 
done,  when  the  natural  forces  seemed  to  hang  suspended.  There 
was  no  rain,  there  was  no  wind,  there  was  no  growth,  no  life;  the 
very  stubble  had  no  force  even  to  rot.  The  sun  alone  moved. 

Toward  two  o'clock,  Presley  reached  Hooven's  place,  two  or 
three  grimy  frame  buildings,  infested  with  a  swarm  of  dogs.  A 
hog  or  two  wandered  aimlessly  about.  Under  a  shed  by  the  bam, 
a  broken-down  seeder  lay  rusting  to  its  ruin.  But  overhead,  a 
mammoth  live-oak,  the  largest  tree  in  all  the  countryside,  towered 
superb  and  magnificent.  Gray  bunches  of  mistletoe  and  festoons 
of  trailing  moss  hung  from  its  bark.  From  its  lowest  branch  hung 
Hooven's  meat-safe,  a  square  box,  faced  with  wire  screens. 

What  gave  a  special  interest  to  Hooven's  was  the  fact  that  here 
was  the  intersection  of  the  Lower  Road  and  Derrick's  main  irrigat- 
ing ditch,  a  vast  trench  not  yet  completed,  which  he  and  Annixter, 
who  worked  the  Quien  Sabe  ranch,  were  jointly  constructing.  It 
ran  directly  across  the  road  and  at  right  angles  to  it,  and  lay  a 
deep  groove  in  the  field  between  Hooven's  and  the  town  of  Guada- 
lajara, some  three  miles  further  on.  Besides  this,  the  ditch  was 
a  natural  boundary  between  two  divisions  of  the  Los  Muertos 
ranch,  the  first  and  fourth. 

Presley  now  had  the  choice  of  two  routes.  His  objective  point 
was  the  spring  at  the  headwaters  of  Broderson  Creek,  in  the  hills 
on  the  eastern  side  of  the  Quien  Sabe  ranch.  The  trail  afforded 
him  a  short  cut  thitherward.  As  he  passed  the  house,  Mrs.  Hooven 
came  to  the  door,  her  little  daughter  Hilda,  dressed  in  a  boy's 
overalls  and  clumsy  boots,  at  her  skirts.  Minna,  her  oldest  daugh- 
ter, a  very  pretty*  girl,  whose  love  affairs  were  continually  the  talk 
of  all  Los  Muertos,  was  visible  through  a  window  of  the  house,  busy 
at  the  week's  washing.  Mrs.  Hooven  was  a  faded,  colorless  woman, 
middle-aged  and  commonplace,  and  offering  not  the  least  charac- 


14  The  Octopus 

be  true — and  it  was  the  first  article  of  his  greed  to  be  unflinch- 
ingly true— he  could  not  ignore  it.  All  the  noble  poetry  of  the 
ranch — the  valley — seemed  in  his  mind  to  be  marred  and  disfigured 
by  the  presence  of  certain  immovable  facts.  Just  what  he  wanted, 
Presley  hardly  knew.  On  one  hand,  it  was  his  ambition  to  portray 
life  as  he  saw  it — directly,  frankly,  and  through  no  medium  of  per- 
sonality or  temperament.  But,  on  the  other  hand  as  well,  he 
wished  to  see  everything  through  a  rose-colored  mist — a  mist  that 
dulled  all  harsh  outlines,  all  crude  and  violent  colors.  He  told 
himself  that,  as  a  part  of  the  people,  he  loved  the  people  and  sym- 
pathized with  their  hopes  and  fears,  and  joys  and  griefs;  and  yet 
Hooven,  grimy  and  perspiring,  with  his  perpetual  grievance  and 
his  contracted  horizon,  only  revolted  him.  He  had  set  himself  the 
task  of  giving  true,  absolutely  true,  poetical  expression  to  the  life 
of  the  ranch,  and  yet  again  and  again,  he  brought  up  against  the 
railroad,  that  stubborn  iron  barrier  against  which  his  romance  shat- 
tered itself  to  froth  and  disintegrated,  flying  spume.  His  heart 
went  out  to  the  people,  and  his  groping  hand  met  that  of  a  slovenly 
little  Dutchman,  whom  it  was  impossible  to  consider  seriously.  He 
searched  for  the  True  Romance,  and,  in  the  end,  found  grain  rates 
and  unjust  freight  tariffs. 

"But  the  stuff  is  Here"  he  muttered,  as  he  sent  his  wheel  rum- 
bling across  the  bridge  over  Broderson  Creek.  "The  romance,  the 
real  romance,  is  here  somewhere.  I'll  get  hold  of  it  yet." 

He  shot  a  glance  about  him  as  if  in  search  of  the  inspiration. 
By  now  he  was  not  quite  half-way  across  the  northern  and  narrow- 
est corner  of  Los  Muertos,  at  this  point  some  eight  miles  wide.  He 
was  still  on  the  Home  ranch.  A  few  miles  to  the  south  he  could 
just  make  out  the  line  of  wire  fence  that  separated  it  from  the 
third  division;  and  to  the  north,  seen  faint  and  blue  through  the 
haze  and  shimmer  of  the  noon  sun,  a  long  file  of  telegraph  poles 
showed  the  line  of  the  railroad  and  marked  Derrick's  northeast 
boundary.  The  road  over  which  Presley  was  traveling  ran  almost 
diametrically  straight.  In  front  of  him,  but  at  a  great  distance, 
he  could  make  out  the  giant  live-oak  and  the  red  roof  of  Hooven's 
barn  that  stood  near  it. 

All  about  him  the  country  was  flat.  In  all  directions  he  could 
see  for  miles.  The  harvest  was  just  over.  Nothing  but  stubble  re- 
mained on  the  ground.  With  the  one  exception  of  the  live-oak  by 
Hooven's  place,  there  was  nothing  green  in  sight.  The  wheat 
stubble  was  of  a  dirty  yellow;  the  ground,  parched,  cracked,  and 


A  Story  of  California  15 

dry,  of  a  cheerless  brown.  By  the  roadside  the  dust  lay  thick  and 
gray,  and,  on  either  hand,  stretching  on  toward  the  horizon,  losing 
itself  in  a  mere  smudge  in  the  distance,  ran  the  illimitable  parallels 
of  the  wire  fence.  And  that  was  all ;  that  and  the  burned-out  blue 
of  the  sky  and  the  steady  shimmer  of  the  heat. 

The  silence  was  infinite.  After  the  harvest,  small  though  that 
harvest  had  been,  the  ranches  seemed  asleep.  It  was  as  though 
the  earth,  after  its  period  of  reproduction,  its  pains  of  labor,  had 
been  delivered  of  the  fruit  of  its  loins,  and  now  slept  the  sleep  of 
exhaustion. 

It  was  the  period  between  seasons,  when  nothing  was  being 
done,  when  the  natural  forces  seemed  to  hang  suspended.  There 
was  no  rain,  there  was  no  wind,  there  was  no  growth,  no  life ;  the 
very  stubble  had  no  force  even  to  rot.  The  sun  alone  moved. 

Toward  two  o'clock,  Presley  reached  Hooven's  place,  two  or 
three  grimy  frame  buildings,  infested  with  a  swarm  of  dogs.  A 
hog  or  two  wandered  aimlessly  about.  Under  a  shed  by  the  barn, 
a  broken-down  seeder  lay  rusting  to  its  ruin.  But  overhead,  a 
mammoth  live-oak,  the  largest  tree  in  all  the  countryside,  towered 
superb  and  magnificent.  Gray  bunches  of  mistletoe  and  festoons 
of  trailing  moss  hung  from  its  bark.  From  its  lowest  branch  hung 
Hooven's  meat-safe,  a  square  box,  faced  with  wire  screens. 

What  gave  a  special  interest  to  Hooven's  was  the  fact  that  here 
was  the  intersection  of  the  Lower  Road  and  Derrick's  main  irrigat- 
ing ditch,  a  vast  trench  not  yet  completed,  which  he  and  Annixter, 
who  worked  the  Quien  Sabe  ranch,  were  jointly  constructing.  It 
ran  directly  across  the  road  and  at  right  angles  to  it,  and  lay  a 
deep  groove  in  the  field  between  Hooven's  and  the  town  of  Guada- 
lajara, some  three  miles  further  on.  Besides  this,  the  ditch  was 
a  natural  boundary  between  two  divisions  of  the  Los  Muertos 
ranch,  the  first  and  fourth. 

Presley  now  had  the  choice  of  two  routes.  His  objective  point 
was  the  spring  at  the  headwaters  of  Broderson  Creek,  in  the  hills 
on  the  eastern  side  of  the  Quien  Sabe  ranch.  The  trail  afforded 
him  a  short  cut  thitherward.  As  he  passed  the  house,  Mrs.  Hooven 
came  to  the  door,  her  little  daughter  Hilda,  dressed  in  a  boy's 
overalls  and  clumsy  boots,  at  her  skirts.  Minna,  her  oldest  daugh- 
ter, a  very  pretty  girl,  whose  love  affairs  were  continually  the  talk 
of  all  Los  Muertos,  was  visible  through  a  window  of  the  house,  busy 
at  the  week's  washing.  Mrs.  Hooven  was  a  faded,  colorless  woman, 
middle-aged  and  commonplace,  and  offering  not  the  least  charac- 


1 6  The  Octopus 

teristic  that  would  distinguish  her  from  a  thousand  other  women 
of  her  class  and  kind.  She  nodded  to  Presley,  watching  him  with 
a  stolid  gaze  from  under  her  arm,  which  she  held  across  her  fore- 
head to  shade  her  eyes. 

But  now  Presley  exerted  himself  in  good  earnest.  His  bicycle 
flew.  He  resolved  that  after  all  he  would  go  to  Guadalajara.  He 
crossed  the  bridge  over  the  irrigating  ditch  with  a  brusque  spurt 
of-  hollow  sound,  and  shot  forward  down  the  last  stretch  of  the 
Lower  Road  that  yet  intervened  between  Hooven's  and  the  town. 
He  was  on  the  fourth  division  of  the  ranch  now,  the  only  one 
whereon  the  wheat  had  been  successful,  no  doubt  because  of  the 
Little  Mission  Creek  that  ran  through  it.  But  he  no  longer  occu- 
pied himself  with  the  landscape.  His  only  concern  was  to  get  on 
as  fast  as  possible.  He  had  looked  forward  to  spending  nearly  the 
whole  day  on  the  crest  of  the  wooded  hills  in  the  northern  corner 
of  the  Quien  Sabe  ranch,  reading,  idling,  smoking  his  pipe.  But 
now  he  would  do  well  if  he  arrived  there  by  the  middle  of  the 
afternoon.  In  a  few  moments  he  had  reached  the  line  fence  that 
marked  the  limits  of  the  ranch.  Here  were  the  railroad  tracks,  and 
just  beyond — a  huddled  mass  of  roofs,  with  here  and  there  an 
adobe  house  on  its  outskirts — the  little  town  of  Guadalajara. 
Nearer  at  hand,  and  directly  in  front  of  Presley,  were  the  freight 
and  passenger  depots  of  the  P.  &  S.  W.,  painted  in  the  gray  and 
white  which  seemed  to  be  the  official  colors  of  all  the  buildings 
owned  by  the  corporation.  The  station  was  deserted.  No  trains 
passed  at  this  hour.  From  the  direction  of  the  ticket  window, 
Presley  heard  the  unsteady  chittering  of  the  telegraph  key.  In  the 
shadow  of  one  of  the  baggage  trucks  upon  the  platform,  the  great 
yellow  £at  that  belonged  to  the  agent  dozed  complacently,  her 
paws  tucked  under  her  body.  Three  flat  cars,  loaded  with  bright- 
painted  farming  machines,  were  on  the  siding  above  the  station, 
while,  on  the  switch  below,  a  huge  freight  engine  that  lacked  its 
cow-catcher  sat  back  upon  its  monstrous  driving-wheels,  motion- 
less, solid,  drawing  long  breaths  that  were  punctuated  by  the  sub- 
dued sound  of  its  steam-pump  clicking  at  extra  intervals. 

But  evidently  it  had  been  decreed  that  Presley  should  be 
stopped  at  every  point  of  his  ride  that  day,  for,  as  he  was  pushing 
his  bicycle  across  the  tracks,  he  was  surprised  to  hear  his  name 
called.  "Hello,  there,  Mr.  Presley.  What's  the  good  word?" 

Presley  looked  up  quickly,  and  saw  Dyke,  the  engineer,  lean- 
ing on  his  folded  arms  from  the  cab  window  of  the  freight  engine. 


A  Story  of  California  17 

But  at  the  prospect  of  this  further  delay,  Presley  was  less  troubled. 
Dyke  and  he  were  well  acquainted  and  the  best  of  friends.  The 
picturesqueness  of  the  engineer's  life  was  always  attractive  to 
Presley,  and  more  than  once  he  had  ridden  on  Dyke's  engine  be- 
tween Guadalajara  and  Bonneville.  Once,  even,  he  had  made  the 
entire  run  between  the  latter  town  and  San  Francisco  in  the  cab. 

Dyke's  home  was  in  Guadalajara.  He  lived  in  one  of  the  re- 
modeled 'dobe  cottages,  where  his  mother  kept  house  for  him.  His 
wife  had  died  some  five  years  before  this  time,  leaving  him  a  little 
daughter,  Sidney,  to  bring  up  as  best  he  could.  Dyke  himself 
was  a  heavy  built,  well-looking  fellow,  nearly  twice  the  weight 
of  Presley,  with  great  shoulders  and  massive,  hairy  arms,  and  a 
tremendous,  rumbling  voice. 

"Hello,  old  man,"  answered  Presley,  coming  up  to  the  engine. 
"What  are  you  doing  about  here  at  this  time  of  day?  I  thought 
you  were  on  the  night  service  this  month." 

"We've  changed  about  a  bit,"  answered  the  other.  "Come  up 
here  and  sit  down,  and  get  out  of  the  sun.  They've  held  us  here 
to  wait  orders,"  he  explained,  as  Presley,  after  leaning  his  bicycle 
against  the  tender,  climbed  to  the  fireman's  seat  of  worn  green 
leather.  "They  are  changing  the  run  of  one  of  the  crack  passenger 
engines  down  below,  and  are  sending  her  up  to  Fresno.  There 
was  a  smash  of  some  kind  on  the  Bakersfield  division,  and  she's 
to  hell  and  gone  behind  her  time.  I  suppose  when  she  comes,  she'll 
come  a-humming.  It  will  be  stand  clear  and  an  open  track  all  the 
way  to  Fresno.  They  have  held  me  here  to  let  her  go  by." 

He  took  his  pipe,  an  old  T.  D.  clay,  but  colored  to  a  beautiful 
shiny  black,  from  the  pocket  of  his  jumper  and  filled  and  lighted  it. 

"Well,  I  don't  suppose  you  object  to  being  held  here,"  observed 
Presley.  "Gives  you  a  chance  to  visit  your  mother  and  the  little 
girl." 

"And  precisely  they  choose  this  day  to  go  up  to  Sacramento," 
answered  Dyke.  "Just  my  luck.  Went  up  to  visit  my  brother's 
people.  By  the  way,  my  brother  may  come  down  here — locate 
here,  I  mean — and  go  into  the  hop-raising  business.  He's  got  an 
option  on  five  hundred  acres  just  back  of  the  town  here.  He  says 
there's  going  to  be  money  in  hops.  I  don't  know ;  maybe  I'll  go  in 
with  him." 

"Why,  what's  the  matter  with  railroading?" 

Dyke  drew  a  couple  of  puffs  on  his  pipe,  and  fixed  Presley 
with  a  glance. 


1 8  The  Octopus 

"There's  this  the  matter  with  it,"  he  said ;  "I'm  fired." 

"Fired !     You !"   exclaimed   Presley,   turning   abruptly   toward 
him. 

"That's  what  I'm  telling  you,"  returned  Dyke  grimly. 

"You  don't  mean  it.    Why,  what  for,  Dyke  ?" 

"Now,  you  tell  me  what  for,"  growled  the  other  savagely.  "Boy 
and  man,  I've  worked  for  the  P.  and  S.  W.  for  over  ten  years,  and 
never  one  yelp  of  a  complaint  did  I  ever  hear  from  them.  They 
know  damn  well  they've  not  got  a  steadier  man  on  the  road.  And 
more  than  that,  more  than  that,  I  don't  belong  to  the  Brotherhood. 
And  when  the  strike  came  along,  I  stood  by  them — stood  by  the 
company.  You  know  that.  And  you  know,  and  they  know,  that 
at  Sacramento  that  time,  I  ran  my  train  according  to  schedule  with 
a  gun  in  each  hand,  never  knowing  when  I  was  going  over  a  mined 
Culvert,  and  there  was  talk  of  giving  me  a  gold  watch  at  the  time. 
To  hell  with  their  gold  watches!  I  want  ordinary  justice  and 
fair  treatment.  And  now,  when  hard  times  come  along,  and  they 
are  cutting  wages,  what  do  they  do?  Do  they  make  any  discrimi- 
nation in  my  case?  Do  they  remember  the  man  that  stood  by 
them  and  risked  his  life  in  their  service?  No.  They  cut  my  pay 
down  just  as  offhand  as  they  do  the  pay  of  any  dirty  little  wiper 
in  the  yard.  Cut  me  along  with — listen  to  this — cut  me  along 
with  men  that  they  had  blacklisted;  strikers  that  they  took  back 
because  they  were  short  of  hands."  He  drew  fiercely  on  his  pipe. 
"I  went  to  them,  yes,  I  did;  I  went  to  the  General  Office,  and  ate 
dirt.  I  told  them  I  was  a  family  man,  and  that  I  didn't  see  how 
I  was  going  to  get  along  on  the  new  scale,  and  I  reminded  them 
of  my  service  during  the  strike.  The  swine  told  me  that  it  wouldn't 
be  fair  to  discriminate  in  favor  of  one  man,  and  that  the  cut  must 
apply  to  all  their  employees  alike.  Fair !"  he  shouted  with  laughter. 
"Fair !  Hear  the  P.  and  S.  W.  talking  about  fairness  and  discrimi- 
nation. That's  good,  that  is.  Well,  I  got  furious.  I  was  a  fool,  I 
suppose.  I  told  them  that,  in  justice  to  myself,  I  wouldn't  do  first- 
class  work  for  third-class  pay.  And  they  said,  'Well,  Mr.  Dyke, 
you  know  what  you  can  do/  Well,  I  did  know.  I  said,  Til  ask 
for  my  time,  if  you  please,'  and  they  gave  it  to  me  just  as  if  they 
were  glad  to  be  shut  of  me.  So  there  you  are,  Presley.  That's  the 
P.  &  S.  W.  Railroad  Company  of  California.  I  am  on  my  last 
run  now." 

"Shameful,"  declared  Presley,  his  sympathies  all  aroused,  now 
that  the  trouble  concerned  a  friend  of  his.  "It's  shameful.  Dyke. 


A  Story  of  California  19 

But/'  he  added,  an  idea  occurring  to  him,  "that  don't  shut  you  out 
from  work.  There  are  other  railroads  in  the  State  that  are  not 
controlled  by  the  P  and  S.  W." 

Dyke  smote  his  knee  with  his  clinched  fist. 

"Name  one." 

Presley  was  silent.  Dyke's  challenge  was  unanswerable.  There 
was  a  lapse  in  their  talk,  Presley  drumming  on  the  arm  of  the  seat, 
meditating  on  this  injustice;  Dyke  looking  off  over  the  fields  be- 
yond the  town,  his  frown  lowering,  his  teeth  rasping  upon  his  pipe- 
stem.  The  station  agent  came  to  the  door  of  the  depot,  stretching 
and  yawning.  On  ahead  of  the  engine,  the  empty  rails  of  the  track, 
reaching  out  toward  the  horizon,  threw  off  visible  layers  of  heat. 
The  telegraph  key  clicked  incessantly. 

"So  I'm  going  to  quit,"  Dyke  remarked  after  a  while,  his  anger 
somewhat  subsided.  "My  brother  and  I  will  take  up  this  hop  ranch. 
I've  saved  a  good  deal  in  the  last  ten  years,  and  there  ought  to  be 
money  in  hops." 

Presley  went  on,  remounting  his  bicycle,  wheeling  silently 
through  the  deserted  streets  of  the  decayed  and  dying  Mexican 
town.  It  was  the  hour  of  the  siesta.  Nobody  was  about.  There 
was  no  business  in  the  town.  It  was  too  close  to  Bonneville  for 
that.  Before  the  railroad  came,  and  in  the  days  when  the  raising 
of  cattle  was  the  great  industry  of  the  country,  it  had  enjoyed  a 
fierce  and  brilliant  life.  Now  it  was  moribund.  The  drug  store, 
the  two  bar-rooms,  the  hotel  at  the  corner  of  the  old  Plaza,  and 
the  shops  where  Mexican  "curios"  were  sold  to  those  occasional 
Eastern  tourists  who  came  to  visit  the  Mission  of  San  Juan,  suf- 
ficed for  the  town's  activity. 

At  Solotari's,  the  restaurant  on  the  Plaza,  diagonally  across 
from  the  hotel,  Presley  ate  his  long-deferred  Mexican  dinner — 
an  omelette  in  Spanish-Mexican  style,  frijoles  and  tortillas,  a  salad, 
and  a  glass  of  white  wine.  In  a  corner  of  the  room,  during  the 
whole  course  of  his  dinner,  two  young  'Mexicans  (one  of  whom  was 
astonishingly  handsome,  after  the  melodramatic  fashion  of  his 
race)  and  an  old  fellow,  the  centenarian  of  the  town,  decrepit 
beyond  belief,  sang  an  interminable  love-song  to  the  accompani- 
ment of  a  guitar  and  an  accordion. 

These  Spanish-Mexicans,  decayed,  picturesque,  vicious,  and  ro- 
mantic, never  failed  to  interest  Presley.  A  few  of  them  still  re- 
mained in  Guadalajara,  drifting  from  the  saloon  to  the  restaurant, 
and  from  the  restaurant  to  the  Plaza,  relics  of  a  former  generation, 


2O  The  Octopus 

standing  for  a  different  order  of  things,  absolutely  idle,  living 
God  knew  how,  happy  with  their  cigarette,  their  guitar,  their  glass 
of  mescal,  and  their  siesta.  The  centenarian  remembered  Fremont 
and  Governor  Alvarado,  and  the  bandit  Jesus  Tejeda,  and  the  days 
when  Los  Muertos  was  a  Spanish  grant,  a  veritable  principality, 
leagues  in  extent,  and  when  there  was  never  a  fence  from  Visalia 
to  Fresno.  Upon  this  occasion,  Presley  offered  the  old  man  a 
drink  of  mescal,  and  excited  him  to  talk  of  the  things  he  remem- 
bered. Their  talk  was  in  Spanish,  a  language  with  which  Presley 
was  familiar. 

"De  La  Cuesta  held  the  grant  of  Los  Muertos  in  those  days," 
the  centenarian  said;  "a  grand  man.  He  had  the  power  of  life 
and  death  over  his  people,  and  there  was  no  law  but  his  word.  There 
was  no  thought  of  wheat  then,  you  may  believe.  It  was  all  cattle 
in  those  days,  sheep,  horses — steers,  not  so  many — and  if  money 
was  scarce,  there  was  always  plenty  to  eat,  and  clothes  enough  for 
all,  and  wine,  ah,  yes,  by  the  vat,  and  oil  too;  the  Mission  Fathers 
had  that.  Yes,  and  there  was  wheat  as  well,  now  that  I  come  to 
think;  but  a  very  little — in  the  field  north  of  the  Mission  where 
now  it  is  the  Seed  ranch;  wheat  fields  were  there,  and  also  a  vine- 
yard, all  on  Mission  grounds.  Wheat,  olives,  and  the  vine;  the 
Fathers  planted  those  to  provide  the  elements  of  the  Holy  Sacra- 
ment— bread,  oil,  and  wine,  you  understand.  It  was  like  that, 
those  industries  began  in  California — from  the  Church;  and  now," 
he  put  his  chin  in  the  air,  "what  would  Father  Ullivari  have  said 
to  such  a  crop  as  Senor  Derrick  plants  these  days?  Ten  thousand 
acres  of  wheat!  Nothing  but  wheat  from  the  Sierra  to  the  Coast 
Range.  I  remember  when  De  La  Cuesta  was  married.  He  had 
never  seen  the  young  lady,  only  her  miniature  portrait,  painted" — 
he  raised  a  shoulder — "I  do  not  know  by  whom,  small,  a  little 
thing  to  be  held  in  the  palm.  But  he  fell  in  love  with  that,  and 
marry  her  he  would.  The  affair  was  arranged  between  him  and  the 
girl's  parents.  But  when  the  time  came  that  De  La  Cuesta  was  to 
go  to  Monterey  to  meet  and  marry  the  girl,  behold,  Jesus  Tejeda 
broke  in  upon  the  small  rancheros  near  Terrabella.  It  was  no  time 
for  De  La  Cuesta  to  be  away,  so  he  sent  his  brother  Esteban  to 
Monterey  to  marry  the  girl  by  proxy  for  him.  I  went  with  Esteban. 
We  were  a  company,  nearly  a  hundred  men.  And  De  La  Cuesta 
sent  a  horse  for  the  girl  to  ride,  white,  pure  white ;  and  the  saddle 
was  of  red  leather;  the  head-stall,  the  bit,  and  buckles,  all  the 
metal  work,  of  virgin  silver.  Well,  there  was  a  ceremony  in  the 


A  Story  of  California  21 

Monterey  Mission,  and  Esteban,  in  the  name  of  his  brother,  was 
married  to  the  girl.  On  our  way  back,  De  La  Cuesta  rode  out  to 
meet  us.  His  company  met  ours  at  Agatha  dos  Palos.  Never 
will  I  forget  De  La  Cuesta's  face  as  his  eyes  fell  upon  the  girl. 
It  was  a  look,  a  glance,  come  and  gone  like  that"  he  snapped  his 
fingers.  "No  one  but  I  saw  it,  but  I  was  close  by.  There  was  no 
mistaking  that  look.  De  La  Cuesta  was  disappointed." 

"And  the  girl  ?"  demanded  Presley. 

"She  never  knew.  Ah,  he  was  a  grand  gentleman,  De  La 
Cuesta.  Always  he  treated  her  as  a  queen.  Never  was  husband 
more  devoted,  more  respectful,  more  chivalrous.  But  love?"  The 
old  fellow  put  his  chin  in  the  air,  shutting  his  eyes  in  a  knowing 
fashion.  "It  was  not  there.  I  could  tell.  They  were  married 
over  again  at  the  Mission  San  Juan  de  Guadalajara—  our  Mission 
— and  for  a  week  all  the  town  of  Guadalajara  was  in  fete.  There 
were  bull-fights  in  the  Plaza — this  very  one — for  five  days,  and  to 
each  of  his  tenants-in-chief,  De  La  Cuesta  gave  a  horse,  a  barrel 
of  tallow,  an  ounce  of  silver,  and  half  an  ounce  of  gold  dust.  Ah, 
those  were  days.  That  was  a  gay  life.  This" — he  made  a  com- 
prehensive gesture  with  his  left  hand — "this  is  stupid." 

"You  may  well  say  that,"  observed  Presley  moodily,  discour- 
aged by  the  other's  talk.  All  his  doubts  and  uncertainty  had  re- 
turned to  him.  Never  would  he  grasp  the  subject  of  his  great 
poem.  To-day  the  life  was  colorless.  Romance  was  dead.  He 
had  lived  too  late.  To  write  of  the  past  was  not  what  he  desired. 
Reality  was  what  he  longed  for,  things  that  he  had  seen.  Yet  how 
to  make  this  compatible  with  romance.  He  rose,  putting  on  his 
hat,  offering  the  old  man  a  cigarette.  The  centenarian  accepted 
with  the  air  of  a  grandee,  and  extended  his  horn  snuff-box.  Presley 
shook  his  head. 

"I  was  born  too  late  for  that,"  he  declared,  "for  that,  and  for 
many  other  things.  Adios" 

"You  are  traveling  to-day,  sefior?" 

"A  little  turn  through  the  country,  to  get  the  kinks  out  of  the 
muscles,"  Presley  answered.  "I  go  up  into  the  Quien  Sabe,  into 
the  high  country  beyond  the  Mission." 

"Ah,  the  Quien  Sabe  rancho.  The  sheep  are  grazing  there 
this  week." 

Solotari,  the  keeper  of  the  restaurant,  explained : 

"Young  Annixter  sold  his  wheat  stubble  on  the  ground  to  the 
sheep  raisers  off  yonder ;"  he  motioned  eastward  toward  the  Sierra 


22  The  Octopus 

foothills.  "Since  Sunday  the  herd  has  been  down.  Very  clever, 
that  young  Annixter.  He  gets  a  price  for  his  stubble,  which  else 
he  would  Have  to  burn,  and  also  manures  his  land  as  the  sheep 
move  from  place  to  place.  A  true  Yankee,  that  Annixter,  a  good 
gringo." 

After  his  meal,  Presley  once  more  mounted  his  bicycle,  and 
leaving  the  restaurant  and  the  Plaza  behind  him,  held  on  through 
the  main  street  of  the  drowsing  town — the  street  that  further  on 
developed  into  the  road  which  turned  abruptly  northward  and  led 
onward  through  the  hop-fields  and  the  Quien  Sabe  ranch  toward 
the  Mission  of  San  Juan. 

The  Home  ranch  of  the  Quien  Sabe  was  in  the  little  triangle 
bounded  on  the  south  by  the  railroad,  on  the  northwest  by  Broder- 
son  Creek,  and  on  the  east  by  the  hop-fields  and  the  Mission  lands. 
It  was  traversed  in  all  directions,  now  by  the  trail  from  Hooven's, 
now  by  the  irrigating  ditch — the  same  which  Presley  had  crossed 
earlier  in  the  day — and  again  by  the  road  upon  which  Presley  then 
found  himself.  In  its  centre  were  Annixter's  ranch  house  and 
barns,  topped  by  the  skeleton-like  tower  of  the  artesian  well  that 
was  to  feed  the  irrigating  ditch.  Further  on,  the  course  of  Broder^ 
son  Creek  was  marked  by  a  curved  line  of  gray-green  willows,  while 
on  the  low  hills  to  the  north,  as  Presley  advanced,  the  ancient  Mis- 
sion of  San  Juan  de  Guadalajara,  with  its  belfry  tower  and  red- 
tiled  roof,  began  to  show  itself  over  the  crests  of  the  venerable 
pear  trees  that  clustered  in  its  garden. 

When  Presley  reached  Annixter's  ranch  house,  he  found  young 
Annixter  himself  stretched  in  his  hammojck  behind  the  mosquito- 
bar  on  the  front  porch,  reading  "David  Copperfield,"  and  gorging 
himself  with  dried  prunes. 

Annixter — after  the  two  had  exchanged  greetings — complained 
of  terrific  colics  all  the  preceding  night.  His  stomach  was  out  of 
whack,  but  you  bet  he  knew  how  to  take  care  of  himself;  the  last 
spell  he  had  consulted  a  doctor  at  Bonneville,  a  gibbering  busy-face 
who  had  filled  him  up  to  the  neck  with  a  dose  of  some  hog-wash 
stuff  that  had  made  him  worse — a  healthy  lot  the  doctors  knew, 
anyhow.  His  case  was  peculiar.  He  knew;  prunes  were  what 
he  needed,  and  by  the  pound. 

Annixter,  who  worked  the  Quien  Sabe  ranch — some  four  thou- 
and  acres  of  rich  clay  and  heavy  loams — was  a  very  young  man, 
younger  even  than  Presley,  like  him  a  college  graduate.  He 
looked  never  a  year  older  than  he  was.  He  was  smooth-shaven 


A  Story  of  California  23 

and  lean  bnilt.  But  his  youthful  appearance  was  offset  by  a  cer- 
tain male  cast  of  countenance,  the  lower  lip  thrust  out,  the  chin 
large  and  deeply  cleft.  His  university  course  had  hardened  rather 
than  polished  him.  He  still  remained  one  of  the  people,  rough 
almost  to  insolence,  direct  in  speech,  intolerant  in  his  opinions,  rely- 
ing upon  absolutely  no  one  but  himself;  yet,  with  all  this,  of  an 
astonishing  degree  of  intelligence,  and  possessed  of  an  executive 
ability  little  short  of  positive  genius.  He  was  a  ferocious  worker, 
allowing  himself  no  pleasures,  and  exacting  the  same  degree  of 
energy  from  all  his  subordinates.  He  was  widely  hated,  and  as 
widely  trusted.  Every  one  spoke  of  his  crusty  temper  and  bullying 
disposition,  invariably  qualifying  the  statement  with  a  commenda- 
tion of  his  resources  and  capabilities.  The  devil  of  a  driver,  a  hard 
man  to  get  along  with,  obstinate,  contrary,  cantankerous;  but 
brains!  No  doubt  of  that;  brains  to  his  boots.  One  would  like 
to  see  the  man  who  could  get  ahead  of  him  on  a  deal.  Twice  he 
had  been  shot  at,  once  from  ambush  on  Osterman's  ranch,  and 
once  by  one  of  his  own  men  whom  he  had  kicked  from  the  sacking 
platform  of  his  harvester  for  gross  negligence.  At  college,  he  had 
specialized  on  finance,  political  economy,  and  scientific  agriculture. 
After  his  graduation  (he  stood  almost  at  the  very  top  of  his  class) 
he  had  returned  and  obtained  the  degree  of  civil  engineer.  Then 
suddenly  he  had  taken  a  notion  that  a  practical  knowledge  of  law 
was  indispensable  to  a  modern  farmer.  In  eight  months  he  did 
the  work  of  three  years,  studying  for  his  bar  examinations.  His 
method  of  study  was  characteristic.  He  reduced  all  the  material 
of  his  text-books  to  notes.  Tearing  out  the  leaves  of  these  note- 
books, he  pasted  them  upon  the  walls  of  his  room;  then,  in  his 
shirt-sleeves,  a  cheap  cigar  in  his  teeth,  his  hands  in  his  pockets, 
he  walked  around  and  around  the  room,  scowling  fiercely  at  his 
notes,  memorizing,  devouring,  digesting.  At  intervals,  he  drank 
great  cupfuls  of  unsweetened,  black  coffee.  When  the  bar  exami- 
nations were  held,  he  was  admitted  at  the  very  head  of  all  the 
applicants,  and  was  complimented  by  the  judge.  Immediately  after- 
ward, he  collapsed  with  nervous  prostration;  his  stomach  "got  out 
of  whack,"  and  he  all  but  died  in  a  Sacramento  boarding-house, 
obstinately  refusing  to  have  anything  to  do  with  doctors,  whom  he 
vituperated  as  a  rabble  of  quacks,  dosing  himself  with  a  patent 
medicine  and  stuffing  himself  almost  to  bursting  with  liver  pills 
and  dried  prunes. 

He  had  taken  a  trip  to  Europe  after  this  sickness  to  put  himself 


24  The  Octopus 

completely  to  rights.  He  intended  to  be  gone  a  year,  but  returned 
at  the  end  of  six  weeks,  fulminating  abuse  of  European  cooking. 
Nearly  his  entire  time  had  been  spent  in  Paris;  but  of  this  sojourn 
he  had  brought  back  but  two  souvenirs,  an  electro-plated  bill-hook 
and  an  empty  bird  cage  which  had  tickled  his  fancy  immensely. 

He  was  wealthy.  Only  a  year  previous  to  this  his  father — a 
widower,  who  had  amassed  a  fortune  in  land  speculation — had 
died,  and  Annixter,  the  only  son,  had  come  into  the  inheritance. 

For  Presley,  Annixter  professed  a  great  admiration,  holding 
in  deep  respect  the  man  who  could  rhyme  words,  referring  to  him 
whenever  there  was  question  of  literature  or  works  of  fiction.  No 
doubt,  there  was  not  much  use  in  poetry,  and  as  for  novels,  to  his 
mind,  there  were  only  Dickens's  works.  Everything  else  was  a  lot 
of  lies.  But  just  the  same,  it  took  brains  to  grind  out  a  poem. 
It  wasn't  every  one  who  could  rhyme  "brave"  and  "glaive,"  and 
make  sense  out  of  it.  Sure  not. 

But  Presley's  case  was  a  notable  exception.  On  no  occasion 
was  Annixter  prepared  to  accept  another  man's  opinion  without  re- 
serve. In  conversation  with  him,  it  was  almost  impossible  to  make 
any  direct  statement,  however  trivial,  that  he  would  accept  without 
either  modification  or  open  contradiction.  He  had  a  passion  for 
violent  discussion.  He  would  argue  upon  every  subject  in  the 
range  of  human  knowledge,  from  astronomy  to  the  tariff,  from  the 
doctrine  of  predestination  to  the  height  of  a  horse.  Never  would 
he  admit  himself  to  be  mistaken ;  when  cornered,  he  would  intrench 
himself  behind  the  remark,  "Yes,  that's  all  very  well.  In  some 
ways,  it  is,  and  then,  again,  in  some  ways,  it  isn't." 

Singularly  enough,  he  and  Presley  were  the  best  of  friends. 
More  than  once,  Presley  marveled  at  this  state  of  affairs,  telling 
himself  that  he  and  Annixter  had  nothing  in  common.  In  all  his 
circle  of  acquaintances,  Presley  was  the  one  man  with  whom  An- 
nixter had  never  quarreled.  The  two  men  were  diametrically  op- 
posed in  temperament.  Presley  was  easy-going;  Annixter,  alert. 
Presley  was  a  confirmed  dreamer,  irresolute,  inactive,  with  a  strong 
tendency  to  melancholy;  the  young  farmer  was  a  man  of  affairs, 
decisive,  combative,  whose  only  reflection  upon  his  interior  economy 
was  a  morbid  concern  in  the  vagaries  of  his  stomach.  Yet  the 
two  never  met  without  a  mutual  pleasure,  taking  a  genuine  interest 
in  each  other's  affairs,  and  often  putting  themselves  to  great  incon- 
venience to  be  of  trifling  service  to  help  one  another. 

As  a  last  characteristic,  Annixter  pretended  to  be  a  woman- 


A  Story  of  California  25 

hater,  for  no  other  reason  than  that  he  was  a  very  bull-calf  of  awk- 
wardness in  feminine  surroundings.  Feemales!  Rot!  There  was 
a  fine  way  for  a  man  to  waste  his  time  and  his  good  money,  lally* 
gagging  with  a  lot  of  feemales.  No,  thank  you;  none  of  it  in  his, 
if  you  please.  Once  only  he  had  an  affair — a  timid,  little  creature 
in  a  glove-cleaning  establishment  in  Sacramento,  whom  he  had 
picked  up,  Heaven  knew  how.  After  his  return  to  his  ranch,  a 
correspondence  had  been  maintained  between  the  two,  Annixter 
taking  the  precaution  to  typewrite  his  letters,  and  never  affixing  his 
signature,  in  an  excess  of  prudence.  He  furthermore  made  carbon 
copies  of  all  his  letters,  filing  them  away  in  a  compartment  of  his 
safe.  Ah,  it  would  be  a  clever  feemale  who  would  get  him  into 
a  mess.  Then,  suddenly  smitten  with  a  panic  terror  that  he  had 
committed  himself,  that  he  was  involving  himself  too  deeply,  he  had 
abruptly  sent  the  little  woman  about  her  business.  It  was  his  only 
love  affair.  After  that,  he  kept  himself  free.  No  petticoats  should 
ever  have  a  hold  on  him.  Sure  not. 

As  Presley  came  up  to  the  edge  of  the  porch,  pushing  his 
bicycle  in  front  of  him,  Annixter  excused  himself  for  not  getting 
up,  alleging  that  the  cramps  returned  the  moment  he  was  off 
his  back. 

"What  are  you  doing  up  this  way?"  he  demanded. 

"Oh,  just  having  a  look  around,"  answered  Presley.  "How's 
the  ranch?" 

"Say,"  observed  the  other,  ignoring  his  question,  "what's  this 
I  hear  about  Derrick  giving  his  tenants  the  bounce,  and  working 
Los  Muertos  himself — working  all  his  land  ?" 

Presley  made  a  sharp  movement  of  impatience  with  his  free 
hand.  "I've  heard  nothing  else  myself  since  morning.  I  suppose 
it  must  be  so." 

"Huh!"  grunted  Annixter,  spitting  out  a  prune  stone.  "You 
give  Magnus  Derrick  my  compliments  and  tell  him  he's  a  fool." 

"What  do  you  mean?" 

"I  suppose  Derrick  thinks  he's  still  running  his  mine,  and  that 
the  same  principles  will  apply  to  getting  grain  out  of  the  earth  as 
to  getting  gold.  Oh,  let  him  go  on  and  see  where  he  brings  up. 
That's  right,  there's  your  Western  farmer,"  he  exclaimed  contemp- 
tuously. "Get  the  guts  out  of  your  land;  work  it  to  death;  never 
give  it  a  rest.  Never  alternate  your  crop,  and  then  when  your  soil 
is  exhausted,  sit  down  and  roar  about  hard  times." 

"I  suppose  Magnus  thinks  the  land  has  had  rest  enough  these 

NORRIS— I— 2. 


26  The  Octopus 

last  two  dry  seasons,"  observed  Presley.  "He  has  raised  no  crop 
to  speak  of  for  two  years.  The  land  has  had  a  good  rest." 

"Ah,  yes,  that  sounds  well,"  Annixter  contradicted,  unwilling 
to  be  convinced.  "In  a  way,  the  land's  been  rested,  and  then,  again, 
in  a  way,  it  hasn't." 

But  Presley,  scenting  an  argument,  refrained  from  answering, 
and  bethought  himself  of  moving  on. 

"I'm  going  to  leave  my  wheel  here  for  a  while,  Buck,"  he  said, 
"if  you  don't  mind.  I'm  going  up  to  the  spring,  and  the  road  is 
rough  between  here  and  there." 

"Stop  in  for  dinner  on  your  way  back,"  said  Annixter.  "There'll 
be  a  venison  steak.  One  of  the  boys  got  a  deer  over  in  the  foot- 
hills last  week.  Out  of  season,  but  never  mind  that  I  can't 
eat  it.  This  stomach  of  mine  wouldn't  digest  sweet  oil  to-day.  Get 
here  about  six." 

"Well,  maybe  I  will,  thank  you,"  said  Presley,  moving  off. 
"By  the  way,"  he  added,  "I  see  your  barn  is  about  done." 

"You  bet,"  answered  Annixter.  "In  about  a  fortnight  now 
she'll  be  all  ready." 

"It's  a  big  barn,"  murmured  Presley,  glancing  around  the  angle 
of  the  house  toward  where  the  great  structure  stood. 

"Guess  we'll  have  to  have  a  dance  there  before  we  move  the 
stock  in,"  observed  Annixter.  "That's  the  custom  all  around  here." 

Presley  took  himself  off,  but  at  the  gate  Annixter  called  after 
him,  his  mouth  full  of  prunes,  "Say,  take  a  look  at  that  herd  of 
sheep  as  you  go  up.  They  are  right  off  here  to  the  east  of  the  road, 
about  half  a  mile  from  here.  I  guess  that's  the  biggest  lot  of  sheep 
you  ever  saw.  You  might  write  a  poem  about  'em.  Lamb— ram ; 
sheep  graze — sunny  days.  Catch  on?" 

Beyond  Broderson  Creek,  as  Presley  advanced,  tramping  along 
on  foot  now,  the  land  opened  out  again  into  the  same  vast  spaces 
of  dull  brown  earth,  sprinkled  with  stubble,  such  as  had  been 
characteristic  of  Derrick's  ranch.  To  the  east  the  reach  seemed 
infinite,  flat,  cheerless,  heat-ridden,  unrolling  like  a  gigantic  scroll 
toward  the  faint  shimmer  of  the  distant  horizon,  with  here  and 
there  an  isolated  live-oak  to  break  the  sombre  monotony.  But 
bordering  the  road  to  the  westward,  the  surface  roughened  and 
raised,  clambering  up  to  the  higher  groond,  on  the  crest  of  which 
the  old  Mission  and  its  surrounding  pear  trees  were  now  plainly 
visible. 

Just  beyond  the  Mission,  the  road  bent  abruptly  eastward,  strik- 


A  Story  of  California  27 

ing  off  across  the  Seed  ranch.  But  Presley  left  the  road  at  this 
point,  going  on  across  the  open  fields.  There  was  no  longer  any 
trail.  It  was  toward  three  o'clock.  The  sun  still  spun  a  silent, 
blazing  disk,  high  in  the  heavens,  and  tramping  through  the  clods 
of  uneven,  broken  plow  was  fatiguing  work.  The  slope  of  the 
lowest  foothills  begun,  the  surface  of  the  country  became  rolling, 
and,  suddenly,  as  he  topped  a  higher  ridge,  Presley  came  upon  the 
sheep. 

Already  he  had  passed  the  larger  part  of  the  herd — an  inter- 
vening rise  of  ground  having  hidden  it  from  sight.  Now,  as  he 
turned  half-way  about,  looking  down  into  the  shallow  hollow  be- 
tween him  and  the  curve  of  the  creek,  he  saw  them  very  plainly. 
The  fringe  of  the  herd  was  some  two  hundred  yards  distant,  but 
its  further  side,  in  that  illusive  shimmer  of  hot  surface  air,  seemed 
miles  away.  The  sheep  were  spread  out  roughly  in  the  shape  of  a 
figure  eight,  two  larger  herds  connected  by  a  smaller,  and  were 
headed  to  the  southward,  moving  slowly,  grazing  on  the  wheat 
stubble  as  they  proceeded.  But  the  number  seemed  incalculable. 
Hundreds  upon  hundreds  upon  hundreds  of  gray,  rounded  backs, 
all  exactly  alike,  huddled,  close-packed,  alive,  hid  the  earth  from 
sight.  It  was  no  longer  an  aggregate  of  individuals.  It  was  a 
mass — a  compact,  solid,  slowly  moving  mass,  huge,  without  form, 
like  a  thick-pressed  growth  of  mushrooms,  spreading  out  in  all 
directions  over  the  earth.  From  it  there  arose  a  vague  murmur, 
confused,  inarticulate,  like  the  sound  of  very  distant  surf,  while 
all  the  air  in  the  vicinity  was  heavy  with  the  warm,  ammoniacal 
odor  of  the  thousands  of  crowding  bodies. 

All  the  colors  of  the  scene  were  sombre — the  brown  of  the 
earth,  the  faded  yellow  of  the  dead  stubble,  the  gray  of  the  myriad 
of  undulating  backs.  Only  on  the  far  side  of  the  herd,  erect,  mo- 
tionless— a  single  note  of  black,  a  speck,  a  dot — the  shepherd 
stood,  leaning  upon  an  empty  water-trough,  solitary,  grave,  im- 
pressive. 

For  a  few  moments,  Presley  stood,  watching.  Then,  as  he 
started  to  move  on,  a  curious  thing  occurred.  At  first,  he  thought 
he  had  heard  some  one  call  his  name.  He  paused,  listening;  there 
was  no  sound  but  the  vague  noise  of  the  moving  sheep.  Then,  as 
this  first  impression  passed,  it  seemed  to  him  that  he  had  been 
beckoned  to.  Yet  nothing  stirred;  except  for  the  lonely  figure 
beyond  the  herd  there  was  no  one  in  sight.  He  started  on  again, 
and  in  half  a  dozen  steps  found  himself  looking  over  his  shoulder. 


28  The  Octopus 

\ 

Without  knowing  why,  he  looked  toward  the  shepherd ;  then  halted 
and  looked  a  second  time  and  a  third.  Had  the  shepherd  called 
to  him?  Presley  knew  that  he  had  heard  no  voice.  Brusquely, 
all  his  attention  seemed  riveted  upon  this  distant  figure.  He  put 
one  forearm  over  his  eyes,  to  keep  off  the  sun,  gazing  across  the 
intervening  herd.  Surely,  the  shepherd  had  called  him.  But  at 
the  next  instant  he  started,  uttering  an  exclamation  under  his 
breath.  The  far-away  speck  of  black  became  animated.  Presley  re- 
marked a  sweeping  gesture.  Though  the  man  had  not  beckoned  to 
him  before,  there  was  no  doubt  that  he  was  beckoning  now.  With- 
out any  hesitation,  and  singularly  interested  in  the  incident,  Pres- 
ley turned  sharply  aside  and  hurried  on  toward  the  shepherd, 
skirting  the  herd,  wondering  all  the  time  that  he  should  answer 
the  call  with  so  little  question,  so  little  hesitation. 

But  the  shepherd  came  forward  to  meet  Presley,  followed  by 
one  of  his  dogs.  As  the  two  men  approached  each  other,  Presley, 
closely  studying  the  other,  began  to  wonder  where  he  had  seen 
him  before.  It  must  have  been  a  very  long  time  ago,  upon  one  of 
his  previous  visits  to  the  ranch.  Certainly,  however,  there  was 
something  familiar  in  the  shepherd's  face  and  figure.  When  they 
came  closer  to  each  other,  and  Presley  could  see  him  more  dis- 
tinctly, this  sense  of  a  previous  acquaintance  was  increased  and 
sharpened. 

The  shepherd  was  a  man  of  about  thirty-five.  He  was. very 
lean  and  spare.  His  brown  canvas  overalls  were  thrust  into  laced 
boots.  A  cartridge  belt  without  any  cartridges  encircled  his  waist. 
A  gray  flannel  shirt,  open  at  the  throat,  showed  his  breast,  tanned 
and  ruddy.  He  wore  no  hat.  His  hair  was  very  black  and  rather 
long.  A  pointed  beard  covered  his  chin,  growing  straight  and  fine 
from  the  hollow  cheeks.  The  absence  of  any  covering  for  his  head 
was,  no  doubt,  habitual  with  him,  for  his  face  was  as  brown  as  an 
Indian's — a  ruddy  brown — quite  different  from  Presley's  dark  olive. 
To  Presley's  morbidly  keen  observation,  the  general  impression  of 
the  shepherd's  face  was  intensely  interesting.  It  was  uncommon  to 
an  astonishing  degree.  Presley's  vivid  imagination  chose  to  see  in 
it  the  face  of  an  ascetic,  of  a  recluse,  almost  that  of  a  young  seer. 
(;  So  must  have  appeared  the  half-inspired  shepherds  of  the  Hebraic 
legends,  the  younger  prophets  of  Israel,  dwellers  in  the  wilderness, 
beholders  of  visions,  having  their  existence  in  a  continual  dream, 
talkers  with  God,  gifted  with  strange  powers. 

Suddenly,  at  some  twenty  paces  distant  from  the  approach- 


A  Story  of  California  29 

ing  shepherd,  Presley  stopped  short,  his  eyes  riveted  upon  the 
other. 

"Vanamee !"  he  exclaimed. 

The  shepherd  smiled  and  came  forward,  holding  out  his  hands, 
saying,  "I  thought  it  was  you.  When  I  saw  you  come  over  the 
hill,  I  called  you." 

"But  not  with  your  voice,"  returned  Presley.  "I  knew  that 
some  one  wanted  me.  I  felt  it.  I  should  have  remembered  that 
you  could  do  that  kind  of  thing." 

"I  have  never  known  it  to  fail.    It  helps  with  the  sheep." 

"With  the  sheep?" 

"In  a  way.  I  can't  tell  exactly  how.  We  don't  understand 
these  things  yet.  There  are  times  when,  if  I  close  my  eyes  and 
dig  my  fists  into  my  temples,  I  can  hold  the  entire  herd  for  perhaps 
a  minute.  Perhaps,  though,  it's  imagination,  who  knows?  But  it's 
good  to  see  you  again.  How  long  has  it  been  since  the  last  time  ? 
Two,  three,  nearly  five  years." 

It  was  more  than  that.  It  was  six  years  since  Presley  and 
Vanamee  had  met,  and  then  it  had  been  for  a  short  time  only, 
during  one  of  the  shepherd's  periodical  brief  returns  to  that  part 
of  the  country.  During  a  week  he  and  Presley  had  been  much 
together,  for  the  two  were  devoted  friends.  Then,  as  abruptly,  as 
mysteriously  as  he  had  come,  Vanamee  disappeared.  Presley  awoke 
one  morning  to  find  him  gone.  Thus,  it  had  been  with  Vanamee 
for  a  period  of  sixteen  years.  He  lived  his  life  in  the  unknown, 
one  could  not  tell  where — in  the  desert,  in  the  mountains,  through- 
out all  the  vast  and  vague  Southwest,  solitary,  strange.  Three, 
four,  five  years  passed.  The  shepherd  would  be  almost  forgotten. 
Never  the  most  trivial  scrap  of  information  as  to  his  whereabouts 
reached  Los  Muertos.  He  had  melted  off  into  the  surface-shim- 
mer of  the  desert,  into  the  mirage;  he  sank  below  the  horizons; 
he  was  swallowed  up  in  the  waste  of  sand  and  sage.  Then,  without 
warning,  he  would  reappear,  coming  in  from  the  wilderness,  emerg- 
ing from  the  unknown.  No  one  knew  him  well.  In  all  that 
countryside  he  had  but  three  friends,  Presley,  Magnus  Derrick,  and 
the  priest  at  the  Mission  of  San  Juan  de  Guadalajara,  Father 
Sarria.  He  remained  always  a  mystery,  living  a  life  half-real,  half- 
legendary.  In  all  those  years  he  did  not  seem  to  have  grown 
older  by  a  single  day.  At  this  time,  Presley  knew  him  to  be  thirty- 
six  years  of  age.  But  since  the  first  day  the  two  had  met,  the  shep- 
herd's face  and  bearing  had,  to  his  eyes,  remained  the  same.  At 


30  The  Octopus 

this  moment,  Presley  was  looking  into  the  same  face  he  had  first 
seen  many,  many  years  ago.  It  was  a  face  stamped  with  an  un- 
speakable sadness,  a  deathless  grief,  the  permanent  imprint  of  a 
tragedy  long  past,  but  yet  a  living  issue.  Presley  told  himself  that 
it  was  impossible  to  look  long  into  Vanamee's  eyes  without  know- 
ing that  here  was  a  man  whose  whole  being  had  been  at  one  time 
shattered  and  riven  to  its  lowest  depths,  whose  life  had  suddenly 
stopped  at  a  certain  moment  of  its  development. 

The  two  friends  sat  down  upon  the  ledge  of  the  watering-trough, 
their  eyes  wandering  incessantly  toward  the  slow  moving  herd, 
grazing  on  the  wheat  stubble,  moving  southward  as  they  grazed. 

"Where  have  you  come  from  this  time?"  Presley  had  asked. 
"Where  have  you  kept  yourself?" 

The  other  swept  the  horizon  to  the  south  and  east  with  a 
vague  gesture. 

"Off  there,  down  to  the  south,  very  far  off.  So  many  places 
that  I  can't  remember.  I  went  the  Long  Trail  this  time;  a  long, 
long  ways.  Arizona,  The  Mexicos,  and,  then,  afterward,  Utah  and 
Nevada,  following  the  horizon,  traveling  at  hazard.  Into  Arizona 
first,  going  in  by  Monument  Pass,  and  then  on  to  the  south,  through 
the  country  of  the  Navajos,  down  by  the  Aga  Thia  Needle — a  great 
blade  of  red  rock  jutting  from  out  the  desert,  like  a  knife  thrust. 
Then  on  and  on  through  The  Mexicos,  all  through  the  Southwest, 
then  back  again  in  a  great  circle  by  Chihuahua  and  Aldama  to  La- 
redo, to  Torreon,  and  Albuquerque.  From  there  across  the  Uncom- 
pahgre  plateau  into  theUintah  country ;  then  at  last  due  west  through 
Nevada  to  California  and  to  the  valley  of  the  San  Joaquin." 

His  voice  lapsed  to  a  monotone,  his  eyes  becoming  fixed;  he 
continued  to  speak  as  though  half  awake,  his  thoughts  elsewhere, 
seeing  again  in  the  eye  of  his  mind  the  reach  of  desert  and  red 
hill,  the  purple  mountain,  the  level  stretch  of  alkali,  leper  white, 
all  the  savage,  gorgeous  desolation  of  the  Long  Trail. 

He  ignored  Presley  for  the  moment,  but,  on  the  other  hand, 
Presley  himself  gave  him  but  half  his  attention.  The  return  of 
Vanamee  had  stimulated  the  poet's  memory.  He  recalled  the  in- 
cidents of  Vanamee's  life,  reviewing  again  that  terrible  drama 
which  had  uprooted  his  soul,  which  had  driven  him  forth  a  wan- 
derer, a  shunner  of  men,  a  sojourner  in  waste  places.  He  was, 
strangely  enough,  a  college  graduate  and  a  man  of  wide  reading 
and  great  intelligence,  but  he  had  chosen  to  lead  his  own  life,  which 
was  that  of  a  recluse. 


A  Story  of  California  31 

Of  a  temperament  similar  in  many  ways  to  Presley's,  there 
were  capabilities  in  Vanamee  that  were  not  ordinarily  to  be  found 
in  the  rank  and  file  of  men.  Living  close  to  nature,  a  poet  by  in- 
stinct, where  Presley  was  but  a  poet  by  training,  there  developed 
in  him  a  great  sensitiveness  to  beauty  and  an  almost  abnormal 
capacity  for  great  happiness  and  great  sorrow;  he  felt  things  in- 
tensely, deeply.  He  never  forgot.  It  was  when  he  was  eighteen 
or  nineteen,  at  the  formative  and  most  impressionable  period  of  his 
life,  that  he  had  met  Angele  Varian.  Presley  barely  remembered 
her  as  a  girl  of  sixteen,  beautiful  almost  beyond  expression,  who 
lived  with  an  aged  aunt  on  the  Seed  ranch  back  of  the  Mission. 
At  this  moment  he  was  trying  to  recall  how  she  looked,  with  her 
hair  of  gold  hanging  in  two  straight  plaits  on  either  side  of  her 
face,  making  three-cornered  her  round,  white  forehead;  her  won- 
derful eyes,  violet  blue,  heavy-lidded,  with  their  astonishing  upward 
slant  toward  the  temples,  the  slant  that  gave  a  strange,  Oriental 
cast  to  her  face,  perplexing,  enchanting.  He  remembered  the 
Egyptian  fulness  of  the  lips,  the  strange  balancing  movement  of 
her  head  upon  her  slender  neck,  the  same  movement  that  one  sees 
in  a  snake  at  poise.  Never  had  he  seen  a  girl  more  radiantly 
beautiful,  never  a  beauty  so  strange,  so  troublous,  so  out  of  all  ac- 
cepted standards.  It  was  small  wonder  that  Vanamee  had  loved 
her,  and  less  wonder,  still,  that  his  love  had  been  so  intense,  so 
passionate,  so  part  of  himself.  Angele  had  loved  him  with  a  love 
no  less  than  his  own.  It  was  one  of  those  legendary  passions  that 
sometimes  occur,  idyllic,  untouched  by  civilization,  spontaneous  as 
the  growth  of  trees,  natural  as  dew-fall,  strong  as  the  firm-seated 
mountains. 

At  the  time  of  his  meeting  with  Angele,  Vanamee  was  living 
on  the  Los  Muertos  ranch.  It  was  there  he  had  chosen  to  spend 
one  of  his  college  vacations.  But  he  preferred  to  pass  it  in  out-of- 
door  work,  sometimes  herding  cattle,  sometimes  pitching  hay, 
sometimes  working  with  pick  and  dynamite-stick  on  the  ditches  in 
the  fourth  division  of  the  ranch,  riding  the  range,  mending  breaks 
in  the  wire  fences,  making  himself  generally  useful.  College  bred 
though  he  was,  the  life  pleased  him.  He  was,  as  he  desired,  close 
to  nature,  living  the  full  measure  of  life,  a  worker  among  workers, 
taking  enjoyment  in  simple  pleasures,  healthy  in  mind  and  body. 
He  believed  in  an  existence  passed  in  this  fashion  in  the  country, 
working  hard,  eating  full,  drinking  deep,  sleeping  dreamlessly. 

But  every  night,  after  supper,  he  saddled  his  pony  and  rode  over 


32  The  Octopus 

to  the  garden  of  the  old  Mission.  The  'dobe  dividing  wall  on  that 
side,-  which  once  had  separated  the  Mission  garden  and  the  Seed 
ranch,  had  long  since  crumbled  away,  and  the  boundary  between 
the  two  pieces  of  ground  was  marked  only  by  a  line  of  venerable 
pear  trees.  Here,  under  these  trees,  he  found  Angele  awaiting  him, 
and  there  the  two  would  sit  through  the  hot,  still  evening,  their 
arms  about  each  other,  watching  the  moon  rise  over  the  foothills, 
listening  to  the  trickle  of  the  water  in  the  moss-incrusted  fountain 
in  the  garden,  and  the  steady  croak  of  the  great  frogs  that  lived  in 
the  damp  north  corner  of  the  inclosure.  Through  all  one  summer 
the  enchantment  of  that  new-found,  wonderful  love,  pure  and  un- 
tainted, filled  the  lives  of  each  of  them  with  its  sweetness.  The 
summer  passed,  the  harvest  moon  came  and  went.  The  nights  were 
very  dark.  In  the  deep  shade  of  the  pear  trees  they  could  no  longer 
see  each  other.  When  they  met  at  the  rendezvous,  Vanamee  found 
her  only  with  his  groping  hands.  They  did  not  speak,  mere  words 
were  useless  between  them.  Silently  as  his  reaching  hands  touched 
her  warm  body,  he  took  her  in  his  arms,  searching  for  her  lips  with 
his.  Then  one  night  the  tragedy  had  suddenly  leaped  from  out  the 
shadow  with  the  abruptness  of  an  explosion. 

It  was  impossible  afterward  to  reconstruct  the  manner  of  its 
occurrence.  To  Angele's  mind — what  there  was  left  of  it — the 
matter  always  remained  a  hideous  blur,  a  blot,  a  vague,  terrible 
confusion.  No  doubt  they  two  had  been  watched;  the  plan  suc- 
ceeded too  well  for  any  other  supposition.  One  moonless  night, 
Angele,  arriving  under  the  black  shadow  of  the  pear  trees  a  little 
earlier  than  usual,  found  the  apparently  familiar  figure  waiting  for 
her.  All  unsuspecting,  she  gave  herself  to  the  embrace  of  a  strange 
pair  of  arms,  and  Vanamee  arriving  but  a  score  of  moments  later, 
stumbled  over  her  prostrate  body,  inert  and  unconscious,  in  the 
shadow  of  the  overspiring  trees. 

Who  was  the  Other?  Angele  was  carried  to  her  home  on  the 
Seed  ranch,  delirious,  all  but  raving,  and  Vanamee,  with  knife 
and  revolver  ready,  ranged  the  countryside  like  a  wolf.  He  was 
not  alone.  The  whole  county  rose,  raging,  horror-struck.  Posse 
after  posse  was  formed,  sent  out,  and  returned  without  so  much 
•i  as  a  clew.  Upon  no  one  could  even  the  shadow  of  suspicion  be 
thrown.  The  Other  had  withdrawn  into  an  impenetrable  mystery. 
There  he  remained.  He  never  was  found ;  he  never  was  so  much  as 
heard  of.  A  legend  arose  about  him,  this  prowler  of  the  night,  this 
strange,  fearful  figure,  with  an  unseen  face,  swooping  in  there 


A  Story  of  California  33 

from  out  the  darkness,  come  and  gone  in  an  instant,  but  leaving  be- 
hind him  a  track  of  terror  and  death  and  rage  and  undying  grief. 
Within  the  year,  in  giving  birth  to  the  child,  Angela  had  died. 

The  little  babe  was  taken  by  Angele's  parents,  and  Angele  was 
buried  in  the  Mission  garden  near  to  the  aged,  gray  sun  dial.  Van- 
amee  stood  by  during  the  ceremony,  but  half  conscious  of  what  was 
going  forward.  At  the  last  moment  he  had  stepped  forward, 
looked  long  into  the  dead  face  framed  in  its  plaits  of  gold  hair, 
the  hair  that  made  three-cornered  the  round,  white  forehead ;  looked 
again  at  the  closed  eyes,  with  their  perplexing  upward  slant  toward 
the  temples,  Oriental,  bizarre;  at  the  lips  with  their  Egyptian 
fulness;  at  the  sweet,  slender  neck;  the  long,  slim  hands;  then 
abruptly  turned  about.  The  last  clods  were  filling  the  grave  at  a 
time  when  he  was  already  far  away,  his  horse's  head  turned  toward 
the  desert. 

For  two  years  no  syllable  was  heard  of  him.  It  was  believed 
that  he  had  killed  himself.  But  Vanamee  had  no  thought  of  that. 
For  two  years  he  wandered  through  Arizona,  living  in  the  desert, 
in  the  wildnerness,  a  recluse,  a  nomad,  an  ascetic.  But,  doubtless, 
all  his  heart  was  in  the  little  coffin  in  the  Mission  garden.  Once  in 
so  often  he  must  come  back  thither.  One  day  he  was  seen  again 
in  the  San  Joaquin.  The  priest,  Father  Sarria,  returning  from  a 
visit  to  the  sick  at  Bonneville,  met  him  on  the  Upper  Road. 

Eighteen  years  had  passed  since  Angele  had  died,  but  the 
thread  of  Vanamee's  life  had  been  snapped.  Nothing  remained 
now  but  the  tangled  ends.  He  had  never  forgotten.  The  long,  dull 
ache,  the  poignant  grief  had  now  become  a  part  of  him.  Presley 
knew  this  to  be  so. 

While  Presley  had  been  reflecting  upon  all  this,  Vanamee  had 
continued  to  speak.  Presley,  however,  had  not  been  wholly  inat- 
tentive. While  his  memory  was  busy  reconstructing  the  details 
of  the  drama  of  the  shepherd's  life,  another  part  of  his  brain  had 
been  swiftly  registering  picture  after  picture  that  Vanamee's  monot- 
onous flow  of  words  struck  off,  as  it  were,  upon  a  steadily  moving, 
scroll.  The  music  of  the  unfamiliar  names  that  occurred  in  his 
recital  was  a  stimulant  to  the  poet's  imagination.  Presley  had  the 
poet's  passion  for  expressive,  sonorous  names.  As  these  came  and 
went  in  Vanamee's  monotonous  undertones,  like  little  notes  of 
harmony  in  a  musical  progression,  he  listened,  delighted  with  their 
resonance.  Navajo,  Quijotoa,  Uintah,  Sonora,  Laredo,  Uncom- 
pahgre — to  him  they  were  so  many  symbols.  It  was  his  West  that 


34  The  Octopus 

passed,  unrolling  there  before  the  eye  of  his  mind:  the  open,  heat- 
scourged  round  of  desert;  the  mesa,  like  a  vast  altar,  shimmering 
purple  in  the  royal  sunset;  the  still,  gigantic  mountains,  heaving 
into  the  sky  from  out  the  canons;  the  strenuous,  fierce  life  of 
isolated  towns,  lost  and  forgotten,  down  there,  far  off,  below  the 
horizon.  Abruptly  his  great  poem,  his  Song  of  the  West,  leaped 
up  again  in  his  imagination.  For  the  moment,  he  all  but  held  it. 
It  was  there,  close  at  hand.  In  another  instant  he  would  grasp  it. 

"Yes,  yes,"  he  exclaimed,  "I  can  see  it  all.  The  desert,  the 
mountains,  all  wild,  primordial,  untamed.  How  I  should  have 
loved  to  have  been  with  you.  Then,  perhaps,  I  should  have  got 
hold  of  my  idea." 

"Your  idea?" 

"The  great  poem  of  the  West.  It's  that  which  I  want  to  write. 
Oh,  to  put  it  all  into  hexameters;  strike  the  great  iron  note;  sing 
the  vast,  terrible  song ;  the  song  of  the  People ;  the  forerunners  of 
empire !" 

Vanamee  understood  him  perfectly.     He  nodded  gravely. 

"Yes,  it  is  there.  It  is  Life,  the  primitive,  simple,  direct  Life, 
passionate,  tumultuous.  Yes,  there  is  an  epic  there." 

Presley  caught  at  the  word.     It  had  never  before  occurred  to  him. 

"Epic,  yes,  that's  it.  It  is  the  epic  I'm  searching  for.  And  how 
I  search  for  it.  You  don't  know.  It  is  sometimes  almost  an  agony. 
Often  and  often  I  can  feel  it  right  there,  there,  at  my  finger-tips, 
but  I  never  quite  catch  it.  It  always  eludes  me.  I  was  born  too 
late.  Ah,  to  get  back  to  that  first  clear-eyed  view  of  things,  to  see 
as  Homer  saw,  as  Beowulf  saw,  as  the  Nibelungen  poets  saw.  The 
life  is  here,  the  same  as  then ;  the  Poem  is  here ;  my  West  is  here ; 
the  primeval,  epic  life  is  here,  here  under  our  hands,  in  the  desert, 
in  the  mountain,  on  the  ranch,  all  over  here,  from  Winnipeg  to 
Guadalupe.  It  is  the  man  who  is  lacking,  the  poet;  we  have  been 
educated  away  from  it  all.  We  are  out  of  touch.  We  are  out  of 
tune." 

Vanamee  heard  him  to  the  end,  his  grave,  sad  face  thoughtful 
and  attentive.  Then  he  rose. 

"I  am  going  over  to  the  Mission,"  he  said,  "to  see  Father 
Sarria.  I  have  not  seen  him  yet." 

"How  about  the  sheep?" 

"The  dogs  will  keep  them  in  hand,  and  I  shall  not  be  gone 
long.  Besides  that,  I  have  a  boy  here  to  help.  He  is  over  yonder 
on  the  other  side  of  the  herd.  We  can't  see  him  from  here." 


A  Story  of  California  35 

Presley  wondered  at  the  heedlessness  of  leaving  the  sheep  so 
slightly  guarded,  but  made  no  comment,  and  the  two  started  off 
across  the  field  in  the  direction  of  the  Mission  church. 

''Well,  yes,  it  is  there — your  epic,"  observed  Vanamee,  as  they 
went  along.  "But  why  write?  Why  not  live  in  it?  Steep  one's 
self  in  the  heat  of  the  desert,  the  glory  ef  the  sunset,  the  blue 
haze  of  the  mesa  and  the  canon." 

"As  you  have  done,  for  instance  ?" 

Vanamee  nodded. 

"No,  I  could  not  do  that,"  declared  Presley;  "I  want  to  go 
back,  but  not  so  far  as  you.  I  feel  that  I  must  compromise.  I 
must  find  expression.  I  could  not  lose  myself  like  that  in  your 
desert.  When  its  vastness  overwhelmed  me,  or  its  beauty  dazzled 
me,  or  its  loneliness  weighed  down  upon  me,,  I  should  have  to  record 
my  impressions.  Otherwise,  I  should  suffocate." 

"Each  to  his  own  life,"  observed  Vanamee. 

The  Mission  of  San  Juan,  built  of  brown  'dobe  blocks,  covered 
with  yellow  plaster,  that  at  many  points  had  dropped  away  from 
the  walls,  stood  on  the  crest  of  a  low  rise  of  the  ground,  facing 
to  the  south.  A  covered  colonnade,  paved  with  round,  worn 
bricks,  from  whence  opened  the  doors  of  the  abandoned  cells,  once 
used  by  the  monks,  adjoined  it  on  the  left.  The  roof  was  of  tiled 
half -cylinders,  split  longitudinally,  and  laid  in  alternate  rows, 
now  concave,  now  convex.  The  main  body  of  the  church  itself 
was  at  right  angles  to  the  colonnade,  and  at  the  point  of  intersec- 
tion rose  the  belfry  tower,  an  ancient  campanile,  where  swung  the 
three  cracked  bells,  the  gift  of  the  King  of  Spain.  Beyond  the 
church  was  the  Mission  garden  and  the  graveyard  that  overlooked 
the  Seed  ranch  in  a  little  hollow  beyond. 

Presley  and  Vanamee  went  down  the  long  colonnade  to  the 
last  door  next  the  belfry  tower,  and  Vanamee  pulled  the  leather 
thong  that  hung  from  a  hole  in  the  door,  setting  a  little  bell  jan- 
gling somewhere  in  the  interior.  The  place,  but  for  this  noise,  was 
shrouded  in  a  Sunday  stillness,  an  absolute  repose.  Only  at  in- 
tervals, one  heard  the  trickle  of  the  unseen  fountain,  and  the  liquid 
cooing  of  doves  in  the  garden. 

Father  Sarria  opened  the  door.  He  was  a  small  man,  some- 
what stout,  with  a  smooth  and  shiny  face.  He  wore  a  frock  coat 
that  was  rather  dirty,  slippers,  and  an  old  yachting  cap  of  blue 
clotVwith  a  broken  leather  vizor.  He  was  smoking  a  cheap  cigar, 
very  fat  and  black. 


36  The  Octopus 

But  instantly  he  recognized  Vanamee  his  face  went  all  alight 
with  pleasure  and  astonishment.  It  seemed  as  if  he  would  never 
have  finished  shaking  both  his  hands ;  and,  as  it  were,  he  released 
but  one  of  them,  patting  him  affectionately  on  the  shoulder  with  the 
other.  He  was  voluble  in  his  welcome,  talking  partly  in  Spanish, 
partly  in  English. 

So  he  had  come  back  again,  this  great  fellow,  tanned  as  an 
Indian,  lean  as  an  Indian,  with  an  Indian's  long  black  hair.  But 
he  had  not  changed,  not  in  the  very  least.  His  beard  had  not  grown 
an  inch.  Aha !  The  rascal,  never  to  give  warning,  to  drop  down,  as 
it  were,  from  out  the  sky.  Such  a  hermit!  To  live  in  the  desert! 
A  veritable  Saint  Jerome.  Did  a  lion  feed  him  down  there  in 
Arizona,  or  was  it  a  raven,  like  Elijah?  The  good  God  had  not 
fattened  him  at  any  rate,  and,  apropos,  he  was  just  about  to  dine 
himself.  He  had  made  a  salad  from  his  own  lettuce.  The  two 
would  dine  with  him,  eh?  For  this  my  son  that  was  lost  is 
found  again. 

But  Presley  excused  himself.  Instinctively,  he  felt  that  Sarria 
and  Vanamee  wanted  to  talk  of  things  concerning  which  he  was  an 
outsider.  It  was  not  at  all  unlikely  that  Vanamee  would  spend 
half  the  night  before  the  high  altar  in  the  church. 

He  took  himself  away,  his  mind  still  busy  with  Vanamee's  ex- 
traordinary life  and  character.  But,  as  he  descended  the  hill,  he  was 
startled  by  a  prolonged  and  raucous  cry,  discordant,  very  harsh, 
thrice  repeated  at  exact  intervals,  and,  looking  up,  he  saw  one  of 
Father  Sarria's  peacocks  balancing  himself  upon  the  topmost  wire 
of  the  fence,  his  long  tail  trailing,  his  neck  outstretched,  filling  the 
air  with  his  stupid  outcry,  for  no  other  reason  than  the  desire  to 
make  a  noise. 

About  an  hour  later,  toward  four  in  the  afternoon,  Presley 
reached  the  spring  at  the  head  of  the  little  canon  in  the  northeast 
corner  of  the  Quien  Sabe  ranch,  the  point  toward  which  he  had  been 
traveling  since  early  in  the  forenoon.  The  place  was  not  without 
its  charm.  Innumerable  live-oaks  overhung  the  canon,  and  Bro- 
derson  Creek — there  a  mere  rivulet,  running  down  from  the  spring 
— gave  a  certain  coolness  to  the  air.  It  was  one  of  the  few  spots 
thereabout  that  had  survived  the  dry  season  of  last  year.  Nearly 
all  the  other  springs  had  dried  completely,  while  Mission  Creek 
on  Derrick's  ranch  was  nothing  better  than  a  dusty  cutting  in  the 
ground,  filled  with  brittle,  concave  flakes  of  dried  and  sun-cracked 
mud. 


A  Story  of  California  37 

Presley  climbed  to  the  summit  of  one  of  the  hills — the  highest — 
that  rose  out  of  the  canon,  from  the  crest  of  which  he  could  see 
for  thirty,  fifty,  sixty,  miles  down  the  valley,  and,  filling  his  pipe, 
smoked  lazily  for  upward  of  an  hour,  his  head  empty  of  thought, 
allowing  himself  to  succumb  to  a  pleasant,  gentle  inanition,  a  little 
drowsy,  comfortable  in  his  place,  prone  upon  the  ground,  warmed 
just  enough  by  such  sunlight  as  filtered  through  the  live-oaks, 
soothed  by  the  good  tobacco  and  the  prolonged  murmur  of  the 
spring  and  creek.  By  degrees,  the  sense  of  his  own  personality  be- 
came blunted,  the  little  wheels  and  cogs  of  thought  moved  slower  and 
slower;  consciousness  dwindled  to  a  point,  the  animal  in  him 
stretched  itself,  purring.  A  delightful  numbness  invaded  his  mind 
and  his  body.  He  was  not  asleep,  he  was  not  awake,  stupefied 
merely,  lapsing  back  to  the  state  of  the  faun,  the  satyr. 

After  a  while,  rousing  himself  a  little,  he  shifted  his  position 
and,  drawing  from  the  pocket  of  his  shooting  coat  his  little  tree- 
calf  edition  of  the  Odyssey,  read  far  into  the  twenty-first  book, 
where,  after  the  failure  of  all  the  suitors  to  bend  Ulysses's  bow, 
it  is  finally  put,  with  mockery,  into  his  own  hands.  Abruptly  the 
drama  of  the  story  roused  him  from  all  his  languor.  In  an  instant, 
he  was  the  poet  again,  his  nerves  tingling,  alive  to  every  sensation, 
responsive  to  every  impression.  The  desire  of  creation,  of  composi- 
tion, grew  big  within  him.  Hexameters  of  his  own  clamored,  tumul- 
tuous, in  his  brain.  Not  for  a  long  time  had  he  "felt  his  poem," 
as  he  called  this  sensation,  so  poignantly.  For  an  instant  he  told 
himself  that  he  actually  held  it. 

It  was,  no  doubt,  Vanamee's  talk  that  had  stimulated  him  to 
this  point.  The  story  of  the  Long  Trail,  with  its  desert  and  moun- 
tain, its  cliff-dwellers,  its  Aztec  ruins,  its  color,  movement,  and 
romance,  filled  his  mind  with  picture  after  picture.  The  epic 
defiled  before  his  vision  like  a  pageant.  Once  more  he  shot  a  glance 
about  him,  as  if  in  search  of  the  inspiration,  and  this  time  he  all  but 
found  it.  He  rose  to  his  feet,  looking  out  and  off  below  him. 

As  from  a  pinnacle,  Presley,  from  where  he  now  stood,  domi- 
nated the  entire  country.  The  sun  had  begun  to  set,  everything  in 
the  range  of  his  vision  was  overlaid  with  a  sheen  of  gold. 

First,  close  at  hand,  it  was  the  Seed  ranch,  carpeting  the  little 
hollow  behind  the  Mission  with  a  spread  of  greens,  some  dark,  some 
vivid,  some  pale  almost  to  yellowness.  Beyond  that  was  the  Mis- 
sion itself,  its  venerable  campanile,  in  whose  arches  hung  the  Span- 
ish King's  bells,  already  growing  ruddy  in  the  sunset.  Further  on, 


38  The  Octopus 

he  could  make  out  Annixter's  ranch  house,  marked  by  the  skeleton- 
like  tower  of  the  Artesian  well,  and,  a  little  further  to  the  east,  the 
huddled,  tiled  roofs  of  Guadalajara.  Far  to  the  west  and  north, 
he  saw  Bonneville  very  plain,  and  the  dome  of  the  courthouse,  a 
purple  silhouette  against  the  glare  of  the  sky.  Other  points  detached 
themselves,  swimming  in  a  golden  mist,  projecting  blue  shadows 
far  before  them;  the  mammoth  live-oak  by  Hooven's,  towering 
superb  and  magnificent;  the  line  of  eucalyptus  trees,  behind  which 
he  knew  was  the  Los  Muertos  ranch  house — his  home ;  the  watering- 
tank,  the  great  iron-hooped  tower  of  wood  that  stood  at  the 
joining  of  the  Lower  Road  and  the  County  Road;  the  long  wind- 
break of  poplar  trees  and  the  white  walls  of  Caraher's  saloon  on 
the  County  Road. 

But  all  this  seemed  to  be  only  foreground,  a  mere  array  of 
accessories — a  mass  of  irrelevant  details.  Beyond  Annixter's,  be- 
yond Guadalajara,  beyond  the  Lower  Road,  beyond  Broderson 
Creek,  on  to  the  south  and  west,  infinite,  illimitable,  stretching  out 
there  under  the  sheen  of  the  sunset  forever  and  forever,  flat,  vast, 
unbroken,  a  huge  scroll,  unrolling  between  the  horizons,  spread  the 
great  stretches  of  the  ranch  of  Los  Muertos,  bare  of  crops,  shaved 
close  in  the  recent  harvest.  Near  at  hand  were  hills,  but  on  that  far 
southern  horizon  only  the  curve  of  the  great  earth  itself 
checked  the  view.  Adjoining  Los  Muertos,  and  widening  to  the 
west,  opened  the  Broderson  ranch.  The  Osterman  ranch  to  the 
northwest  carried  on  the  great  sweep  of  landscape;  ranch  after 
ranch.  Then,  as  the  imagination  itself  expanded  under  the  stimulus 
of  that  measureless  range  of  vision,  even  those  great  ranches  re- 
solved themselves  into  mere  foreground,  mere  accessories,  irrele- 
vant details.  Beyond  the  fine  line  of  the  horizons,  over  the  curve  of 
the  globe,  the  shoulder  of  the  earth,  were  other  ranches,  equally 
vast,  and  beyond  these,  others,  and  beyond  these,  still  others,  the 
immensities  multiplying,  lengthening  out  vaster  and  vaster.  The 
whole  gigantic  sweep  of  the  San  Joaquin  expanded,  Titanic,  before 
the  eye  of  the  mind,  flagellated  with  heat,  quivering  and  shimmering 
under  the  sun's  red  eye.  At  long  intervals,  a  faint  breath  of  wind 
out  of  the  south  passed  slowly  over  the  levels  of  the  baked  and 
empty  earth,  accentuating  the  silence,  marking  off  the  stillness.  It 
seemed  to  exhale  from  the  land  itself,  a  prolonged  sigh  of  deep 
fatigue.  It  was  the  season  after  the  harvest,  and  the  great  earth, 
the  mother,  after  its  period  of  reproduction,  its  pains  of  labor, 
delivered  of  the  fruit  of  its  loins,  slept  the  sleep  of  exhaustion, 


A  Story  of  California  39 

the  infinite  repose  of  the  colossus,  benignant,  eternal,  strong,  the 
nourisher  of  nations,  the  feeder  of  an  entire  world. 

Ha!  there  it  was,  his  epic,  his  inspiration,  his  West,  his  thun- 
dering progression  of  hexameters.  A  sudden  uplift,  a  sense  of 
exhilaration,  of  physical  exaltation,  appeared  abruptly  to  sweep 
Presley  from  his  feet.  As  from  a  point  high  above  the  world,  he 
seemed  to  dominate  a  universe,  a  whole  order  of  things.  He  was 
dizzied,  stunned,  stupefied,  his  morbid  supersensitive  mind  reeling, 
drunk  with  the  intoxication  of  mere  immensity.  Stupendous  ideas 
for  which  there  were  no  names  drove  headlong  through  his  brain. 
Terrible,  formless  shapes,  vague  figures,  gigantic,  monstrous,  dis- 
torted, whirled  at  a  gallop  through  his  imagination. 

He  started  homeward,  still  in  his  dream,  descending  from  the 
hill,  emerging  from  the  canon,  and  took  the  short  cut  straight  across 
the  Quien  Sabe  ranch,  leaving  Guadalajara  far  to  his  left.  He 
tramped  steadily  on  through  the  wheat  stubble,  walking  fast,  his 
head  in  a  whirl. 

Never  had  he  so  nearly  grasped  his  inspiration  as  at  that  mo- 
ment on  the  hill-top.  Even  now,  though  the  sunset  was  fading, 
though  the  wide  reach  of  valley  was  shut  from  sight,  it  still  kept  him 
company.  Now  the  details  came  thronging  back — the  com- 
ponent parts  of  his  poem,  the  signs  and  symbols  of  the  West.  It 
was  there,  close  at  hand,  he  had  been  in  touch  with  it  all  day. 
It  was  in  the  centenarian's  vividly  colored  reminiscences — De  La 
Cuesta,  holding  his  grant  from  the  Spanish  crown,  with  his  power 
of  life  and  death ;  the  romance  of  his  marriage ;  the  white  horse  with 
its  pillion  of  red  leather  and  silver  bridle  mountings ;  the  bull-fights 
in  the  Plaza.;  the  gifts  of  gold  dust,  and  horses  and  tallow.  It 
was  in  Vanamee's  strange  history,  the  tragedy  of  his  love;  Angele 
Varian,  with  her  marvelous  loveliness ;  the  Egyptian  fulness  of  her 
lips,  the  perplexing  upward  slant  of  her  violet  eyes,  bizarre,  Oriental ; 
her  white  forehead  made  three-cornere4  by  her  plaits  of  gold 
hair;  the  mystery  of  the  Other;  her  death  at  the  moment  of  her 
child's  birth.  It  was  in  Vanamee's  flight  into  the  wilderness;  the 
story  of  the  Long  Trail ;  the  sunsets  behind  the  altar-like  mesas, 
the  baking  desolation  of  the  deserts;  the  strenuous,  fierce  life  of 
forgotten  towns,  down  there,  far  off,  lost  below  the  horizons  of 
the  southwest;  the  sonorous  music  of  unfamiliar  names — Quijotoa, 
Uintah,  Sonora,  Laredo,  Uncompahgre.  It  was  in  the  Mission, 
with  its  cracked  bells,  its  decaying  walls,  its  venerable  sun  dial, 
its  fountain  and  old  garden,  and  in  the  Mission  Fathers  themselves, 


40  The  Octopus 

the  priests,  the  padres,  planting  the  first  wheat  and  oil  and  wine 
to  produce  the  elements  of  the  Sacrament — a  trinity  of  great  in- 
dustries, taking  their  rise  in  a  religious  rite. 

Abruptly,  as  if  in  confirmation,  Presley  heard  the  sound  of  a  bell 
from  the  direction  of  the  Mission  itself.  It  was  the  de  Profun- 
dis,  a  note  of  the  Old  World ;  of  the  ancient  regime,  an  echo  from 
the  hillsides  of  medieval  Europe,  sounding  there  in  this  new  land, 
unfamiliar  and  strange  at  this  end-of-the-century  time. 

By  now,  however,  it  was  dark.  Presley  hurried  forward.  He 
came  to  the  line  fence  of  the  Quien  Sabe  ranch.  Everything 
was  very  still.  The  stars  were  all  out.  There  was  not  a  sound 
other  than  the  de  Profundis,  still  sounding  from  very  far  away.  At 
long  intervals  the  great  earth  sighed  dreamily  in  its  sleep.  All 
about,  the  feeling  of  absolute  peace  and  quiet  and  security  and 
untroubled  happiness  and  content  seemed  descending  from  the  stars 
like  a  benediction.  The  beauty  of  his  poem,  its  idyl,  came  to  him 
like  a  caress ;  that  alone  had  been  lacking.  It  was  that,  perhaps, 
which  had  left  it  hitherto  incomplete.  At  last  he  was  to  grasp  his 
song  in  all  its  entity. 

But  suddenly  there  was  an  interruption.  Presley  had  climbed 
the  fence  at  the  limit  of  the  Quien  Sabe  ranch.  Beyond  was  Los 
Muertos,  but  between  the  two  ran  the  railroad.  He  had  only  time 
to  jump  back  upon  the  embankment  when,  with  a  quivering  of  all 
the  earth,  a  locomotive,  single,  unattached,  shot  by  him  with  a 
roar,  filling  the  air  with  the  reek  of  hot  oil,  vomiting  smoke  and 
sparks ;  its  enormous  eye,  cyclopean,  red,  throwing  a  glare  far  in 
advance,  shooting  by  in  a  sudden  crash  of  confused  thunder; 
filling  the  night  with  the  terrific  clamor  of  its  iron  hoofs. 

Abruptly  Presley  remembered.  This  must  be  the  crack  passen- 
ger engine  of  which  Dyke  had  told  him,  the  one  delayed  by  the 
accident  on  the  Bakersfield  division,  and  for  whose  passage  the 
track  had  been  opened  all  the  way  to  Fresno. 

Before  Presley  could  recover  the  shock  of  the  irruption,  while  the 
earth  was  still  vibrating,  the  rails  still  humming,  the  engine  was 
far  away,  flinging  the  echo  of  its  frantic  gallop  over  all  the  valley. 
For  a  brief  instant  it  roared  with  a  hollow  diapason  on  the  Long 
Trestle  over  Broderson  Creek,  then  plunged  into  a  cutting  further 
on,  the  quivering  glare  of  its  fires  losing  itself  in  the  night,  its 
thunder  abruptly  diminishing  to  a  subdued  and  distant  humming. 
All  at  once  this  ceased.  The  engine  was  gone. 

But  the  moment  the  noise  of  the  engine  lapsed,  Presley — about 


A  Story  of  California  41 

to  start  forward  again — was  conscious  of  a  confusion  of  lamentable 
sounds  that  rose  into  the  night  from  out  the  engine's  wake.  Pro- 
longed cries  of  agony,  sobbing  wails  of  infinite  pain,  heartrending, 
pitiful. 

The  noises  (Came  from  a  little  distance.  He  ran  down  the 
track,  crossing  the  culvert,  over  the  irrigating  ditch,  and  at  the 
head  of  the  long  reach  of  track — between  the  culvert  and  the  Long 
Trestle — paused  abruptly,  held  immovable  at  the  sight  of  the  ground 
and  rails  all  about  him. 

In  some  way,  the  herd  of  sheep — Vanamee's  herd — had  found 
a  breach  in  the  wire  fence  by  the  right  of  way  and  had  wandered 
out  upon  the  tracks.  A  band  had  been  crossing  just  at  the  moment 
of  the  engine's  passage.  The  pathos  of  it  was  beyond  expression. 
It  was  a  slaughter,  a  massacre  of  innocents.  The  iron  monster 
had  charged  full  into  the  midst,  merciless,  inexorable.  To  the  right 
and  left,  all  the  width  of  the  right  of  way,  the  little  bodies  had  been 
flung;  backs  were  snapped  against  the  fence  posts;  brains  knocked 
out.  Caught  in  the  barbs  of  the  wire,  wedged  in,  the  bodies  hung 
suspended.  Under  foot  it  was  terrible.  The  black  blood,  winking 
in  the  starlight,  seeped  down  into  the  clinkers  between  the  ties 
with  a  prolonged  sucking  murmur. 

Presley  turned  away,  horror-struck,  sick  at  heart,  overwhelmed 
with  a  quick  burst  of  irresistible  compassion  for  this  brute  agony 
he  could  not  relieve.  The  sweetness  was  gone  from  the  evening, 
the  sense  of  peace,  of  security,  and  placid  contentment  was  stricken 
from  the  landscape.  The  hideous  ruin  in  the  engine's  path  drove 
all  thought  of  his  poem  from  his  mind.  The  inspiration  vanished 
like  a  mist.  The  de  Profundis  had  ceased  to  ring. 

He  hurried  on  across  the  Los  Muertos  ranch,  almost  running, 
even  putting  his  hands  over  his  ears  till  he  was  out  of  hearing  dis- 
tance of  that  all  but  human  distress.  Not  until  he  was  beyond  ear- 
shot did  he  pause,  looking  back,  listening.  The  night  had  shut  down 
again.  For  a  moment  the  silence  was  profound,  unbroken. 

Then,  faint  and  prolonged,  across  the  levels  of  the  ranch,  he 
heard  the  engine  whistling  for  Bonneville.  Again  and  again,  at 
rapid  intervals  in  its  flying  course,  it  whistled  for  road  crossings, 
for  sharp  curves,  for  trestles;  ominous  notes,  hoarse,  bellowing, 
ringing  with  the  accents  of  menace  and  defiance;  and  abruptly 
Presley  saw  again,  in  his  imagination,  the  galloping  monster,  the 
terror  of  steel  and  steam,  with  its  single  eye,  cyclopean,  red,  shoot- 
ing from  horizon  to  horizon;  but  saw  it  now  as  the  symbol  of  a 


42  The  Octopus 

vast  power,  huge,  terrible,  flinging  the  echo  of  its  thunder  over  all 
the  reaches  of  the  valley,  leaving  blood  and  destruction  in  its  path ; 
the  leviathan,  with  tentacles  o"f  steel  clutching  into  the  soil,  the 
soulless  Force,  the  iron-hearted  Power,  the  monster,  the  Colossus, 
the  Octopus. 

II 

ON  the  following  morning,  Harran  Derrick  was  up  and  about 
by  a  little  after  six  o'clock,  and  a  quarter  of  an  hour  later  had 
breakfast  in  the  kitchen  of  the  ranch  house,  preferring  not  to  wait 
until  the  Chinese  cook  laid  the  table  in  the  regular  dining-room. 
He  scented  a  hard  day's  work  ahead  of  him,  and  was  anxious  to 
be  at  it  betimes.  He  was  practically  the  manager  of  Los  Muertos, 
and,  with  the  aid  of  his  foreman  and  three  division  superintendents, 
carried  forward  nearly  the  entire  direction  of  the  ranch,  occupying 
himself  with  the  details  of  his  father's  plans,  executing  his  orders, 
signing  contracts,  paying  bills,  and  keeping  the  books. 

For  the  last  three  weeks  little  had  been  done.  The  crop — 
such  as  it 'was — had  been  harvested  and  sold,  and  there  had  been 
a  general  relaxation  of  activity  for  upward  of  a  month.  Now, 
however,  the  fall  was  coming  on,  the  dry  season  was  about  at  its 
end;  any  time  after  the  twentieth  of  the  month  the  first  rains 
might  be  expected,  softening  the  ground,  putting  it  into  condition 
for  the  plow.  Two  days  before  this,  Harran  had  notified  his 
superintendents  on  Three  and  Four  to  send  in  such  grain  as  they 
had  reserved  for  seed.  On  Two  the  wheat  had  not  even  shown  itself 
above  the  ground,  while  on  One,  the  Home  ranch,  which  was  under 
his  own  immediate  supervision,  the  seed  had  already  been  graded 
and  selected. 

It  was  Harran's  intention  to  commence  blue-stoning  his  seed 
that  day,  a  delicate  and  important  process  which  prevented  rust 
and  smut  appearing  in  the  crop  when  the  wheat  should  come 
up.  But,  furthermore,  he  wanted  to  find  time  to  go  to  Guada- 
lajara to  meet  the  Governor  on  the  morning  train.  His  day  prom- 
ised to  be  busy. 

But  as  Harran  was  finishing  his  last  cup  of  coffee,  Phelps,  the 
foreman  on  the  Home  ranch,  who  also  looked  after  the  storage 
barns  where  the  seed  was  kept,  presented  himself,  cap  in  hand,  on 
the  back  porch  by  the  kitchen  door. 

"I  thought  I'd  speak  to  you  about  the  seed  from  Four,  sir," 
he  said.  "That  hasn't  been  brought  in  yet." 


A  Story  of  California  43 

Harran  nodded. 

"I'll  see  about  it.  You've  got  all  the  blue-stone  you  want,  have 
you,  Phelps?"  and  without  waiting  for  an  answer  he  added,  "Teil 
the  stableman  I  shall  want  the  team  about  nine  o'clock  to  go  to 
Guadalajara.  Put  them  in  the  buggy.  The  bays,  you  under- 
stand." 

When  the  other  had  gone,  Harran  drank  off  the  rest  of  his 
coffee,  and,  rising,  passed  through  the  dining-room  and  across  a 
stone-paved  hallway  with  a  glass  roof  into  the  office  just  beyond. 

The  office  was  the  nerve-centre  of  the  entire  ten  thousand  acres 
of  Los  Muertos,  but  its  appearance  and  furnishings  were  not  in 
the  least  suggestive  of  a  farm.  It  was  divided  at  about  its  middle 
by  a  wire  railing,  painted  green  and  gold,  and  behind  this  railing 
were  the  high  desks  where  the  books  were  kept,  the  safe,  the  letter- 
press and  letter-files,  and  Harran's  typewriting  machine.  A  great 
map  of  Los  Muertos  with  every  water-course,  depression,  and 
elevation,  together  with  indications  of  the  varying  depths  of  the 
clays  and  loams  in  the  soil,  accurately  plotted,  hung  against  the 
wall  between  the  windows,  while  near  at  hand  by  the  safe  was  the 
telephone. 

But,  no  doubt,  the  most  significant  object  in  the  office  was  the 
ticker.  This  was  an  innovation  in  the  San  Joaquin,  an  idea  of 
shrewd,  quick-witted  young  Annixter,  which  Harran  and  Magnus 
Derrick  had  been  quick  to  adopt,  and  after  them  Broderson  and 
Osterman,  and  many  others  of  the  wheat  growers  of  the  county. 
The  offices  of  the  ranches  were  thus  connected  by  wire  with  San 
Francisco,  and  through  that  city  with  Minneapolis,  Duluth,  Chi- 
cago, New  York,  and  at  last,  and  most  important  of  all,  with 
Liverpool.  Fluctuations  in  the  price  of  the  world's  crop  during 
and  after  the  harvest  thrilled  straight  to  the  office  of  Los  Muertos, 
to  that  of  the  Quien  Sabe,  to  Osterman's,  and  to  Broderson's.  Dur- 
ing a  flurry  in  the  Chicago  wheat  pits  in  the  August  of  that  year, 
which  had  affected  even  the  San  Francisco  market,  Harran  and 
Magnus  had  sat  up  nearly  half  of  one  night  watching  the  strip  of 
white  tape  jerking  unsteadily  from  the  reel.  At  such  moments  they 
no  longer  felt  their  individuality.  The  ranch  became  merely  the 
part  of  an  enormous  whole,  a  unit  in  the  vast  agglomeration  of 
wheat  land  the  whole  world  round,  feeling  the  effects  of  causes 
thousands  of  miles  distant — a  drought  on  the  prairies  of  Dakota,  a 
rain  on  the  plains  of  India,  a  frost  on  the  Russian  steppes,  a 
hot  wind  on  the  llanos  of  the  Argentine. 


44  The  Octopus 

Harran  crossed  over  to  the  telephone  and  rang  six  bells,  the 
call  for  the  division  house  on  Four.  It  was  the  most  distant,  the 
most  isolated  point  on  all  the  ranch,  situated  at  its  far  southeastern 
extremity,  where  few  people  ever  went,  close  to  the  line  fence,  a 
dot,  a  speck,  lost  in  the  immensity  of  the  open  country.  By  the 
road  it  was  eleven  miles  distant  from  the  office,  and  by  the  trail 
to  Hooven's  and  the  Lower  Road  all  of  nine. 

"How  about  that  seed?"  demanded  Harran  when  he  had  got 
Cutter  on  the  line. 

The  other  made  excuses  for  an  unavoidable  delay,  and  was 
adding  that  he  was  on  the  point  of  starting  out,  when  Harran  cut 
in  with: 

"You  had  better  go  the  trail.  It  will  save  a  little  time  and  I 
am  in  a  hurry.  Put  your  sacks  on  the  horses'  backs.  And,  Cutter, 
if  you  see  Hooven  when  you  go  by  his  place,  tell  him  I  want  him, 
and,  by  the  way,  take  a  look  at  the  end  of  the  irrigating  ditch 
when  you  get  to  it.  See  how  they  are  getting  -along  there  and  if 
Billy  wants  anything.  Tell  him  we  are  expecting  those  new  scoops 
down  to-morrow  or  next  day  and  to  get  along  with  what  he  has 
until  then.  .  .  .  How's  everything  on  Four?  .  .  .  All  right,  then. 
Give  your  seed  to  Phelps  when  you  get  here  if  I  am  not  about. 
I  am  going  to  Guadalajara  to  meet  the  Governor.  He's  coming 
down  to-day.  And  that  makes  me  think;  we  lost  the  case,  you 
know.  I  had  a  letter  from  the  Governor  yesterday.  .  .  .  Yes, 
hard  luck.  S.  Behrman  did  us  up.  Well,  good-by,  and  don't  lose 
any  time  with  that  seed.  I  want  to  blue-stone  to-day." 

After  telephoning  Cutter,  Harran  put  on  his  hat,  went  over  to 
the  barns,  and  found  Phelps.  Phelps  had  already  cleaned  out  the 
vat  which  was  to  contain  the  solution  of  blue-stone,  and  was  now 
at  work  regrading  the  seed.  Against  the  wall  behind  him  ranged 
the  row  of  sacks.  Harran  cut  the  fastenings  of  these  and  ex- 
amined the  contents  carefully,  taking  handfuls  of  wheat  from  each 
and  allowing  it  to  run  through  his  fingers,  or  nipping  the  grains 
between  his  nails,  testing  their  hardness. 

The  seed  was  all  of  the  white  varieties  of  wheat  and  of  a  very 
high  grade,  the  berries  hard  and  heavy,  rigid  and  swollen  with  starch. 

"If  it  was  all  like  that,  sir,  hey?"  observed  Phelps. 

Harran  put  his  chin  in  the  air. 

"Bread  would  be  as  good  as  cake,  then,"  he  answered,  going 
from  sack  to  sack,  inspecting  the  contents  and  consulting  the  tags 
affixed  to  the  mouths. 


A  Story  of  California  45 

"Hello,"  he  remarked,  "here's  a  red  wheat.  Where  did  this 
come  from?" 

"That's  that  red  Clawson  we  sowed  to  the  piece  on  Four, 
north  of  the  Mission  Creek,  just  to  see  how  it  would  do  here.  We 
didn't  get  a  very  good  catch." 

"We  can't  do  better  than  to  stay  by  White  Sonora  and  Propo," 
remarked  Harran.  "We've  got  our  best  results  with  that,  and 
European  millers  like  it  to  mix  with  the  Eastern  wheats  that 
have  more  gluten  than  ours.  That  is,  if  we  have  any  wheat  at  all 
next  year." 

A  feeling  of  discouragement  for  the  moment  bore  down  heavily 
upon  him.  At  intervals  this  came  to  him  and  for  the  moment  it 
was  overpowering.  The  idea  of  "what's-the-use"  was  upon  occa- 
sion a  veritable  oppression.  Everything  seemed  to  combine  to 
lower  the  price  of  wheat.  The  extension  of  wheat  areas  always 
exceeded  increase  of  population;  competition  was  growing  fiercer 
every  year.  The  farmer's  profits  were  the  object  of  attack  from 
a  score  of  different  quarters.  It  was  a  flock  of  vultures  descend- 
ing upon  a  common  prey — the  commission  merchant,  the  elevator 
combine,  the  mixing-house  ring,  the  banks,  the  warehouse  men, 
the  laboring  man,  and,  above  all,  the  railroad.  Steadily  the  Liver- 
pool buyers  cut  and  cut  and  cut.  Everything,  every  element  of  the 
world's  markets,  tended  to  force  down  the  price  to  the  lowest  pos- 
sible figure  at  which  it  could  be  profitably  farmed.  Now  it  was 
down  to  eighty-seven.  It  was  at  that  figure  the  crop  had  sold 
that  year;  and  to  think  that  the  Governor  had  seen  wheat  at  two 
dollars  and  five  cents  in  the  year  of  the  Turko-Russian  War! 

He  turned  back  to  the  house  after  giving  Phelps  final  direc- 
tions, gloomy,  disheartened,  his  hands  deep  in  his  pockets,  wonder- 
ing what  was  to  be  the  outcome.  So  narrow  had  the  margin  of 
profit  shrunk  that  a  dry  season  meant  bankruptcy  to  the  smaller 
farmers  throughout  all  the  valley.  He  knew  very  well  how  wide- 
spread had  been  the  distress  the  last  two  years.  With  their  own 
tenants  on  Los  Muertos,  affairs  had  reached  the  stage  of  despera- 
tion. Derrick  had  practically  been  obliged  to  "carry"  Hooven  and 
some  of  the  others.  The  Governor  himself  had  made  almost  noth- 
ing during  the  last  season ;  a  third  year  like  the  last,  with  the  price 
steadily  sagging,  meant  nothing  else  but  ruin. 

But  here  he  checked  himself.  Two  consecutive  dry  seasons 
in  California  were  almost  unprecedented;  a  third  would  be  beyond 
belief,  and  the  complete  rest  for  nearly  all  the  land  was  a  com- 


46  The  Octopus 

pensation.  They  had  made  no  money,  that  was  true ;  but  they  had 
lost  none.  Thank  God,  the  homestead  was  free  of  mortgage;  one 
good  season  would  more  than  make  up  the  difference. 

He  was  in  a  better  mood  by  the  time  he  reached  the  driveway 
that  led  up  to  the  ranch  house,  and  as  he  raised  his  eyes  toward 
the  house  itself,  he  could  not  but  feel  that  the  sight  of  his  home 
was  cheering.  The  ranch  house  was  set  in  a  great  grove  of  eu- 
calyptus, oak,  and  cypress,  enormous  trees  growing  from  out  a 
lawn  that  was  as  green,  as  fresh,  and  as  well  groomed  as  any  in  a 
garden  in  the  city.  This  lawn  flanked  all  one  side  of  the  house,  and 
it  was  on  this  side  that  the  family  elected  to  spend  most  of  its  time. 
The  other  side,  looking  out  upon  the  Home  ranch  toward  Bonne- 
ville  and  the  railroad,  was  but  little  used.  A  deep  porch  ran  the 
whole  length  of  the  house  here,  and  in  the  lower  branches  of  a  live- 
oak  near  the  steps  Harran  had  built  a  little  summer  house  for  his 
mother.  To  the  left  of  the  ranch  house  itself,  toward  the  County 
Road,  was  the  bunk-house  and  kitchen  for  some  of  the  hands. 
From  the  steps  of  the  porch  the  view  to  the  southward  expanded 
to  infinity.  There  was  not  so  much  as  a  twig  to  obstruct  the  view. 
In  one  leap  the  eye  reached  the  fine,  delicate  line  where  earth  and 
sky  met,  miles  away.  The  flat  monotony  of  the  land,  clean  of 
fencing,  was  broken  by  one  spot  only,  the  roof  of  the  Division 
Superintendent's  house  on  Three — a  mere  speck,  just  darker  than 
the  ground.  Cutter's  house  on  Four  was  not  even  in  sight.  That 
was  below  the  horizon. 

As  Harran  came  up  he  saw  his  mother  at  breakfast.  The  table 
had  been  set  on  the  porch,  and  Mrs.  Derrick,  stirring  her  coffee 
with  one  hand,  held  open  with  the  other  the  pages  of  Walter 
Pater's  "Marius."  At  her  feet,  Princess  Nathalie,  the  white  An- 
gora cat,  sleek,  over-fed,  self-centred,  sat  on  her  haunches,  indus- 
triously licking  at  the  white  fur  of  her  breast,  while  near  at  hand, 
by  the  railing  of  the  porch,  Presley  pottered  with  a  new  bicycle 
lamp,  filling  it  with  oil,  adjusting  the  wicks. 

Harran  kissed  his  mother  and  sat  down  in  a  wicker  chair  on 
the  porch,  removing  his  hat,  running  his  fingers  through  his  yellow 
hair. 

Magnus  Derrick's  wife  looked  hardly  old  enough  to  be  the 
mother  of  two  such  big  fellows  as  Harran  and  Lyman  Derrick. 
She  was  not  far  into  the  fifties,  and  her  brown  hair  still  retained 
much  of  its  brightness.  She  could  yet  be  called  pretty.  Her  eyes 
were  large  and  easily  assumed  a  look  of  inquiry  and  innocence, 


A  Story  of  California  47 

such  as  one  might  expect  to  see  in  a  young  girl.  By  disposition 
she  was  retiring;  she  easily  obliterated  herself.  She  was  not  made 
for  the  harshness  of  the  world,  and  yet  she  had  known  these  harsh- 
nesses in  her  younger  days.  Magnus  had  married  her  when  she 
was  twenty-one  years  old,  at  a  time  when  she  was  a  graduate  of 
some  years'  standing  from  the  State  Normal  School  and  was  teach- 
ing literature,  music,  and  penmanship  in  a  seminary  in  the  town 
of  Marysville.  She  overworked  herself  here  continually,  loathing 
the  strain  of  teaching,  yet  clinging  to  it  with  a  tenacity  born  of  the 
knowledge  that  it  was  her  only  means  of  support.  Both  her  parents 
were  dead;  she  was  dependent  upon  herself.  He**  one  ambition 
was  to  see  Italy  and  the  Bay  of  Naples.  The  "Marble  Faun," 
Raphael's  "Madonnas"  and  "II  Trovatore"  were  her  beau  ideals  of 
literature  and  art.  She  dreamed  of  Italy,  Rome,  Naples,  and  the 
world's  great  "art  centres."  There  was  no  doubt  that  her  affair 
with  Magnus  had  been  a  love-match,  but  Annie  Payne  would  have 
loved  any  man  who  would  have  taken  her  out  of  the  droning, 
heart-breaking  routine  of  the  class  and  music  room.  She  had  fol- 
lowed his  fortunes  unquestioningly.  First  at  Sacramento,  during 
the  turmoil  of  his  political  career,  later  On  at  Placerville  in  El  Do- 
rado County,  after  Derrick  had  interested  himself  in  the  Corpus 
Christi  group  of  mines,  and  finally  at  Los  Muertos,  where,  after 
selling  out  his  fourth  interest  in  Corpus  Christi,  he  had  turned 
rancher  and  had  "come  in"  on  the  new  tracts  of  wheat  land 
just  thrown  open  by  the  railroad.  She  had  lived  here  now  for 
nearly  ten  years.  But  never  for  one  moment  since  the  time  her 
glance  first  lost  itself  in  the  unbroken  immensity  of  the  ranches  had 
she  known  a  moment's  content.  Continually  there  came  into  her 
pretty,  wide-open  eyes — the  eyes  of  a  young  doe — a  look  of  un- 
easiness, of  distrust,  and  aversion.  Los  Muertos  frightened  her. 
She  remembered  the  days  of  her  young  girlhood  passed  on  a  farm 
in  eastern  Ohio — five  hundred  acres,  neatly  partitioned  into  the 
water  lot,  the  cow  pasture,  the  corn  lot,  the  barley  field,  and 
wheat  farm;  cosey,  comfortable,  home-like;  where  the  farmers 
loved  their  land,  caressing  it,  coaxing  it,  nourishing  it  as  though  it 
were  a  thing  almost  'conscious ;  where  the  seed  was  sown  by  hand, 
and  a  single  two-horse  plow  was  sufficient  for  the  entire  farm ; 
where  the  scythe  sufficed  to  cut  the  harvest  and  the  grain  was 
thrashed  with  flails. 

But  this  new  order  of  things — a  ranch  bounded  only  by  the 
horizon,  where,  as  far  as  one  could  see,  to  the  north,  to  the  east, 


48  The  Octopus 

to  the  south,  and  to  the  west,  was  all  one  holding,  a  principality 
ruled  with  iron  and  steam,  bullied  into  a  yield  of  three  hundred 
and  fifty  thousand  bushels,  where  even  when  the  land  was  resting, 
unplowed,  unharrowed,  and  unsown,  the  wheat  came  up — troubled 
her,  and  even  at  times  filled  her  with  an  undefinable  terror.  To 
her  mind  there  was  something  inordinate  about  it  all;  something 
almost  unnatural.  The  direct  brutality  of  ten  thousand  acres  of 
wheat,  nothing  but  wheat  as  far  as  the  eye  could  see,  stunned  her 
a  little.  The  one-time  writing-teacher  of  a  young  ladies'  semi- 
nary, with  her  pretty  deer-like  eyes  and  delicate  fingers,  shrank 
from  it.  She  did  not  want  to  look  at  so  much  wheat.  There  was 
something  vaguely  indecent  in  the  sight,  this  food  of  the  people,  this 
elemental  force,  this  basic  energy,  weltering  here  under  the  sun 
in  all  the  unconscious  nakedness  of  a  sprawling,  primordial  Titan. 

The  monotony  of  the  ranch  ate  into  her  heart  hour  by  hour, 
year  by  year.  And  with  it  all,  when  was  she  to  see  Rome,  Italy, 
and  the  Bay  of  Naples?  It  was  a  different  prospect  truly.  Mag- 
nus had  given  her  his  promise  that  once  the  ranch  was  well  estab- 
lished, they  two  should  travel.  But  continually  h«  had  been  obliged 
to  put  her  off,  now  for  one  reason,  now  for  another;  the  machine 
would  not  as  yet  run  of  itself,  he  must  still  feel  his  hand  upon  the 
lever;  next  year,  perhaps,  when  wheat  should  go  to  ninety,  or  the 
rains  were  good.  She  did  not  insist.  She  obliterated  herself,  only 
allowing,  from  time  to  time,  her  pretty,  questioning  eyes  to  meet 
his.  In  the  meantime  she  retired  within  herself.  She  surrounded 
herself  with  books.  Her  taste  was  of  the  delicacy  of  point  lace. 
She  knew  her  Austin  JD.obson  by  heart.  She  read  poems,  essays, 
the  ideas  of  the  seminary  at  Marysville  persisting  in  her  mind. 
"Marius  the  Epicurean,"  "The  Essays  of  Elia,"  "Sesame  and 
Lilies,"  "The  Stones  of  Venice,"  and  the  little  toy  magazines,  full 
of  the  flaccid  banalities  of  the  "Minor  Poets,"  were  continually  in 
her  hands. 

When  Presley  had  appeared  on  Los  Muertos,  she  had  wel- 
comed his  arrival  with  delight.  Here  at  last  was  a  congenial  spirit. 
She  looked  forward  to  long  conversations  with  the  young  man 
on  literature,  art,  and  ethics.  But  Presley  had  disappointed  her. 
That  he — outside  of  his  few  chosen  deities — should  care  little  for 
literature,  shocked  her  beyond  words.  His  indifference  to  "style," 
to  elegant  English,  was  a  positive  affront.  His  savage  abuse  and 
open  ridicule  of  the  neatly  phrased  rondeaux  and  sestinas  and 
chansonettes  of  the  little  magazines  was  to  her  mind  a  wanton  and 


